I use putty everyday to login to a Linux session and execute some commands. Automate putty via batch and execute a command. Using this script I am able to. 3.7 Connecting to a local serial line PuTTY can connect directly to a local serial line. 3.8.3.6 `-m': read a remote command or script from a file The `-m' option.
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Plink (PuTTY Link) is a command-line connection tool similar to UNIX
ssh
. It is mostly used for automated operations, such as making CVS access a repository on a remote server.Plink is probably not what you want if you want to run an interactive session in a console window.
Section 7.1: Starting Plink
Plink is a command line application. This means that you cannot just double-click on its icon to run it and instead you have to bring up a console window. In Windows 95, 98, and ME, this is called an 'MS-DOS Prompt', and in Windows NT and 2000 it is called a 'Command Prompt'. It should be available from the Programs section of your Start Menu.
In order to use Plink, the file
plink.exe
will need either to be on your PATH
or in your current directory. To add the directory containing Plink to your PATH
environment variable, type into the console window:This will only work for the lifetime of that particular console window. To set your
PATH
more permanently on Windows NT, use the Environment tab of the System Control Panel. On Windows 95, 98, and ME, you will need to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT
to include a set
command like the one above.Section 7.2: Using Plink
This section describes the basics of how to use Plink for interactive logins and for automated processes.
Once you've got a console window to type into, you can just type
plink
on its own to bring up a usage message. This tells you the version of Plink you're using, and gives you a brief summary of how to use Plink:Once this works, you are ready to use Plink.
7.2.1 Using Plink for interactive logins
To make a simple interactive connection to a remote server, just type
plink
and then the host name:You should then be able to log in as normal and run a session. The output sent by the server will be written straight to your command prompt window, which will most likely not interpret terminal control codes in the way the server expects it to. So if you run any full-screen applications, for example, you can expect to see strange characters appearing in your window. Interactive connections like this are not the main point of Plink.
In order to connect with a different protocol, you can give the command line options
-ssh
, -telnet
, -rlogin
or -raw
. To make an SSH connection, for example:If you have already set up a PuTTY saved session, then instead of supplying a host name, you can give the saved session name. This allows you to use public-key authentication, specify a user name, and use most of the other features of PuTTY:
7.2.2 Using Plink for automated connections
More typically Plink is used with the SSH protocol, to enable you to talk directly to a program running on the server. To do this you have to ensure Plink is using the SSH protocol. You can do this in several ways:
- Use the
-ssh
option as described in section 7.2.1. - Set up a PuTTY saved session that describes the server you are connecting to, and that also specifies the protocol as SSH.
- Set the Windows environment variable
PLINK_PROTOCOL
to the wordssh
.
Usually Plink is not invoked directly by a user, but run automatically by another process. Therefore you typically do not want Plink to prompt you for a user name or a password.
To avoid being prompted for a user name, you can:
- Use the
-l
option to specify a user name on the command line. For example,plink login.example.com -l fred
. - Set up a PuTTY saved session that describes the server you are connecting to, and that also specifies the username to log in as (see section 4.12.2).
To avoid being prompted for a password, you should almost certainly set up public-key authentication. (See chapter 8 for a general introduction to public-key authentication.) Again, you can do this in two ways:
- Set up a PuTTY saved session that describes the server you are connecting to, and that also specifies a private key file (see section 4.16.5). For this to work without prompting, your private key will need to have no passphrase.
- Store the private key in Pageant. See chapter 9 for further information.
Once you have done all this, you should be able to run a remote command on the SSH server machine and have it execute automatically with no prompting:
Or, if you have set up a saved session with all the connection details:
Then you can set up other programs to run this Plink command and talk to it as if it were a process on the server machine.
You may also find it useful to use the
-batch
command-line option; see section 7.2.3.6.7.2.3 Options
This section describes the command line options that Plink accepts.
7.2.3.1 -v
show verbose messages
By default, Plink only displays any password prompts and the output of the remote command. The
-v
option makes it print extra information about the connection being made, for example:This information can be useful for diagnosing problems.
7.2.3.2 Protocol selection options
Plink is most useful when using the SSH protocol. However, it allows you to interface to all the protocols supported by PuTTY. You can specify the option
-ssh
on the command line to select the SSH protocol; you can also specify -telnet
, -rlogin
or -raw
to select other protocols.7.2.3.3 -P port
connect to specified port
If your server machine is running its SSH service on a port other than the standard one, you can specify an alternative port number to connect to using the
-P
option, like this:7.2.3.4 -pw passw
login with specified password
A simple way to automate a remote login is to supply your password on the Plink command line. This is not recommended for reasons of security. If you possibly can, we recommend you set up public-key authentication instead. See chapter 8 for details.
7.2.3.5 -l username
login with specified username
As described in section 7.2.2, you can specify the user name to log in as on the remote server using the
-l
option. For example, plink login.example.com -l fred
.7.2.3.6 -batch
avoid interactive prompts
If you use the
-batch
option, Plink will never give an interactive prompt while establishing the connection. If the server's host key is invalid, for example (see section 2.2), then the connection will simply be abandoned instead of asking you what to do next.This may help Plink's behaviour when it is used in automated scripts: using
-batch
, if something goes wrong at connection time, the batch job will fail rather than hang.7.2.3.7 -m filename
read command from a file
If the command you want to run on the remote server is particularly large, you can read it from a file using the
-m
option, instead of putting it directly on Plink's command line. On most Unix systems, you can even put multiple lines in this file and execute more than one command in sequence, or a whole shell script.7.2.3.8 -L
and -R
set up port forwarding
Plink allows you to use port forwarding just as PuTTY does; if you have set up a PuTTY saved session that specifies port forwardings, and you connect to that session using Plink, then the same port forwardings will be set up.
For convenience, Plink also offers the option to set up port forwarding on the command line. The command-line options work just like the ones in Unix
ssh
programs.To forward a local port (say 5110) to a remote destination (say
popserver.example.com
port 110), you can write:And to forward a remote port to a local destination, just use the
-R
option instead of -L
:For general information on port forwarding, see section 3.5.
Section 7.3: Using Plink in batch files and scripts
Once you have set up Plink to be able to log in to a remote server without any interactive prompting (see section 7.2.2), you can use it for lots of scripting and batch purposes. For example, to start a backup on a remote machine, you might use a command like:
Or perhaps you want to fetch all system log lines relating to a particular web area:
Any non-interactive command you could usefully run on the server command line, you can run in a batch file using Plink in this way.
Section 7.4: Using Plink with CVS
To use Plink with CVS, you need to set the environment variable
CVS_RSH
to point to Plink:You also need to arrange to be able to connect to a remote host without any interactive prompts, as described in section 7.2.2.
You should then be able to run CVS as follows:
If you specified a username in your saved session, you don't even need to specify the 'user' part of this, and you can just say:
Section 7.5: Using Plink with WinCVS
Plink can also be used with WinCVS. Firstly, arrange for Plink to be able to connect to a remote host non-interactively, as described in section 7.2.2.
Then, in WinCVS, bring up the 'Preferences' dialogue box from the Admin menu, and switch to the 'Ports' tab. Tick the box there labelled 'Check for an alternate
rsh
name' and in the text entry field to the right enter the full path to plink.exe
. Select 'OK' on the 'Preferences' dialogue box.Next, select 'Command Line' from the WinCVS 'Admin' menu, and type a CVS command as in section 7.4, for example:
Select the folder you want to check out to with the 'Change Folder' button, and click 'OK' to check out your module. Once you've got modules checked out, WinCVS will happily invoke plink from the GUI for CVS operations.
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I've got a piece of code running on an Arduino board that will accept ASCII text commands on its serial port, and then will switch some relays based on which text commands you send it.
I need to be able to run an automation script or batch file (on Windows XP and later only) that will switch the relays under certain conditions during an overnight test run.
I have this all working, in that I can connect a serial terminal program to the COM155 port that the Arduino is connected to, and type the commands into the terminal program, and it will accept the commands and will work.
Is there a super-simple way to send these commands from the DOS prompt or from a DOS batch file or a vbscript? I've tried COPY and ECHO... those just create a file on the hard disk called 'COM155' when I try it.
Uncle google isn't helping me here. I do searches, and the results always talk about using PUTTY and typing things live. I want to automate this. Or, the search results say to use COPY or ECHO, and of course, I tried that and it just makes a hard disk file named COM155.
I know that I could just compile an EXE file to use as a stub program that will handle the necessary details of opening the COM port, sending the command, and closing the COM port. But I'm trying for a quicker, simpler solution here without having to get into an extra layer of C code just to get this one simple thing done.
I need to be able to run an automation script or batch file (on Windows XP and later only) that will switch the relays under certain conditions during an overnight test run.
I have this all working, in that I can connect a serial terminal program to the COM155 port that the Arduino is connected to, and type the commands into the terminal program, and it will accept the commands and will work.
Is there a super-simple way to send these commands from the DOS prompt or from a DOS batch file or a vbscript? I've tried COPY and ECHO... those just create a file on the hard disk called 'COM155' when I try it.
Uncle google isn't helping me here. I do searches, and the results always talk about using PUTTY and typing things live. I want to automate this. Or, the search results say to use COPY or ECHO, and of course, I tried that and it just makes a hard disk file named COM155.
I know that I could just compile an EXE file to use as a stub program that will handle the necessary details of opening the COM port, sending the command, and closing the COM port. But I'm trying for a quicker, simpler solution here without having to get into an extra layer of C code just to get this one simple thing done.