Expect Scripts

TomH — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 19:50:58 GMT

I see there are a couple of Expect scripts on the PA support site. 1 of them can be used to automate config changes. However, the doc does not explain how to use them. Do the scripts run on a host PC or on the PAN device? How specifically do I get them to run?

Re: Expect Scripts

MashRotor — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:28:55 GMT

Such scripts would be run from a trusted PC used to remotely manage the PA device. A read-write administrator account would be created for their use.

It's not a good idea to venture into such things unless you are very comfortable with shell scripting and Perl, and the management PC is very, very secure.

I would recommend that if you dabble with automating things, begin with read-only access to pull stats and such before graduating to more complicated and dangerous activities.

The Palo Alto PAN-perl-20110828.tar.gz package has examples for use of Perl and Expect. I posted a simple Perl Net::OpenSSH script in this forum. There's also the XML API, see docs DOC-1031.pdf and DOC-1714.pdf to get started.

Most automation approaches require a Linux managment PC, although I imagine that a person would be able to use Windows and something like AutoIT or other batch tool.

Good luck.

topic Re: Expect Scripts in Automation/API Discussions

Expect Scripts

Re: Expect Scripts