Expect/TCL: pass commands to specific proc/spawn IDs - tcl

Question

I am trying to write an expect script that will do the following..
open up 13 terminal windows (gnome-terminal, xterm etc)
each window connects to a terminal server via ssh (ssh InReach#10.1.6.254)
and is provided the password via expect.
i can get this to work fine in a single window. the problem i am having though is getting the input passed over to each window.
for instance...
i can do
set timeout -1
spawn gnome-terminal -x ssh InReach#10.1.6.254
inside of a while loop and get my 13 windows. but i would like each one to be logged in automatically via expect.

Answer 1

You can try a slightly different approach. Instead of opening the terminal windows in the expect script, open them in a basic shell script, and have each terminal run an expect script to start a single SSH session.
So the expect script could be as simple as this:
#!/usr/bin/expect -f
spawn ssh InReach#10.1.6.254
# ... provide password ...
interact
And the shell script:
#!/bin/sh
for a in `seq 1 13`; do
gnome-terminal -x ./expect_script
done

Answer 2

When you spawn, you need to cache the $spawn_id value which is set by the attempt.
e.g.
if [catch "spawn ssh -l mtc $ub1_ip_address" ub1_pid] {
Log $ERROR "Unable to spawn ssh to Xubuntu.\n$ub1_pid\n"
return 0
}
set stored_id $spawn_id
To send a command to one terminal session in particular, do
send -i $stored_id "command"
Then, before you contact each, you must first do
expect {
-i $stored_id
[ ... your regexes, globs, etc. ... ]
}
You can find some add'l info http://wiki.tcl.tk/11583
I would also suggest making use of gnome-terminal's ability to specify multiple tabs, including an indication of which is the currently-active one, and a command to be executed. gnome-terminal --help-all is helpful (no pun intended).