How to get system_profiler output from a lot of machines in a network

applescriptscriptterminal

I need to have a script that will execute "system_profiler -detailLevel full" command in a remote mac machine. While this is going on, the user on the remote machine should not know that there is something happening.

I tried the following applescript:

tell application "Terminal" of machine "eppc://<ip address of remote machine>"
    activate
    do script "system_profiler -detailLevel full >> /$HOSTNAME.txt" 
end tell

This activates the terminal app on the desktop and hence a bad idea, as user working on that remote machine is interrupted. I want this to happen in the background.

I want a shell script (not an applescript) that will take the name of hostnames from a text file stored on the same location where the shell script is. It will then go to each host from that list of hostnames, execute the system_profiler command and copy the text file having the output of the command ($HOSTNAME.txt file) back to the machine from where the shell script was executed.

The file copying should be done without ssh,scp etc.

Best Answer

For reading a text file of hostnames into an AppleScript list, see Read textfile into list in Applescript.

For looping over hostnames within your AppleScript list see An AppleScript list iterate/loop example:

set myList to {"Hello", "Goodbye", "I must be going"}
repeat with theItem in myList
  say theItem
end repeat

do shell script

To avoid launching Terminal.app, use the do shell script command:

tell machine "eppc://<ip address of remote machine>"
    do shell script "system_profiler -detailLevel full > /tmp/sysprofile.txt"
end tell

This can be run without launching a supporting graphical application.

I am assuming you can not access the remote host via secure shell, only via Remote AppleEvent access eppc.

Returning the File

Read the contents of the file within your AppleScript's tell machine block and save it locally outside of the tell machine block.

Alternatively, have you considered transferring back the system profile file via ssh or scp? Consider having your AppleScript to connect to your Mac and copy back the collected system profile.

Related Solutions

Executing shell script requiring input from the user using the Automator

I'm not really familiar with the Scala language at all, but it looks like the script is only built to take user input for the password, not arguments or stdin, which is what's required for Automator to pass it data.

The shell that Automator runs scripts in is non-interactive, so your script can't directly prompt the user for a password. If you can rework your script to take a password via stdin, you could use an AppleScript wrapper to get a password dialog, if that's what you're hoping for.

If you rework your pgpsign script to take a password from stdin, you can use an Applescript action (with some shell scripting embedded) to display a password dialog and get the results you desire.

Replace your Run Shell Script action in your current workflow with a Run AppleScript action, with the following code:

on run {input, parameters}
    set thePath to quoted form of POSIX path of first item of input as string
    tell application "System Events"
        display dialog "Password:" default answer "" with hidden answer
    end tell
    set pass to text returned of result
    do shell script "cd " & thePath & "; echo " & quoted form of pass & " | perl -ne 'chomp and print' | ~/scripts/pgpsign"
end run

It's not the most straightforward, so I'll run through line by line what it's doing.

on run {input, parameters}
    set thePath to quoted form of POSIX path of first item of input as string

This gets the input from the service (the folder you selected) and turns it into a string that the shell script can make use of.

tell application "System Events"
    display dialog "Password:" default answer "" with hidden answer
end tell
set pass to text returned of result

This pops up a password dialog and stores the result to the pass variable. Ordinarily in AppleScript you don't need the System Events tell portion, but because of some quirks with Automator, it's required here.

do shell script "cd " & thePath & "; echo " & quoted form of pass & " | perl -ne 'chomp and print' | ~/scripts/pgpsign"

This ties it all together and sends the required parameters to your script. First we change to the selected directory (to answer your question in the comments, as your script is written, it is necessary to first cd to the directory you want). Then echo is used to send the password to stdin, and it's piped through the perl portion to strip the trailing newline (which is an annoying characteristic of AppleScript and would otherwise cause a valid password to fail), then piped to your script.

Sorry for giving you a lot to digest, but if you want to use Automator for this, it's probably the easiest way, unless you want to hardcode your password (which is obviously inadvisable for security reasons).

How to Apple Script open a shell script with options in a Terminal window

The following AppleScript works for me:

tell application "Terminal"
    do script "~/testscript" & " -arg1" & " -arg2"
end tell