Get Mac-Address-Table from HPE Aruba Swtich with plink ssh

this is my code:

@( 
  ' ', #for "Press any key to continue" 
  'show mac-address'
  ) | plink <ip> -P 22 -ssh -v -l admin -pw pwd -batch 

Read-Host -Prompt “Press Enter to exit”

sometimes i get this output:

←[1;13r←[1;1HSession sent command exit status 0
Main session channel closed
All channels closed

and sometimes i get this output:

Remote side unexpectedly closed network connection
FATAL ERROR: Remote side unexpectedly closed network connection

If i write the plink command without Pipe:

plink <ip> -P 22 -ssh -v -l admin -pw pwd -batch

It works. But i need it automated

Solution

I happen to have an Aruba switch and found that specifying non-interactive SSH with -batch, or commands with -m, just causes the switch to disconnect your session like you're seeing. Maybe there's a setting to allow it?

I found this works pretty well, using more of a .net approach due to issues with Start-Process redirection. This opens plink in a separate process, and sends commands to its stdin:

# set up a process with redirection enabled
$psi = New-Object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
  $psi.FileName               = "plink.exe" #process file
  $psi.UseShellExecute        = $false      #start the process from it's own executable file
  $psi.WorkingDirectory       = 'C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY' # or add to path
  $psi.RedirectStandardInput  = $true       #enable the process to read from our standard input
  $psi.RedirectStandardOutput = $true       #enable reading standard output from powershell
  # update these:
  $psi.Arguments = "$IPADDRESS -P 22 -ssh -l admin -pw $PASS"

# launch plink
$plink = [System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start($psi);
sleep 1

# send key presses to plink shell
$plink.StandardInput.AutoFlush = $true
$plink.StandardInput.WriteLine() # press return to begin session
$plink.StandardInput.WriteLine() # press any key to continue (banner)
$plink.StandardInput.WriteLine('show mac-address') # get macs
$plink.StandardInput.WriteLine('exit') # exit and confirm logoff
$plink.StandardInput.WriteLine('exit') 
$plink.StandardInput.WriteLine('y')

# read output from process
$output = $plink.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd()

# exit plink
$plink.Close()


# outputs like so (trimmed of banners etc)
$output

MAC Address       Port                            VLAN
----------------- ------------------------------- ----
005056-00000X     15                              1
005056-00000Y     9                               1
005056-00000Z     11                              1

You may have to play around with the commands a bit, but I found plink was pretty generous with how quickly input gets thrown at it

I did notice if the plink process is waiting (ssh session still connected), then ReadToEnd() will wait forever. Maybe it can be replaced with a ReadLine() loop, but it can be hard to tell when it's done.