I think you missed a level of quotes escaping. At this high level of escaping, it is best to simply make a little script for every stage where otherwise quotes would be required.
Otherwise, you could try this modified version (but mind you, I don't encourage this coding style!)
function _remoteInstallation(){
local retval=1
local debToInstall=$(basename "$1")
local remoteMachine="$2"
spawned=$(expect -d -c "
set timeout 1800
spawn \"/usr/bin/ssh -t borrajax@$remoteMachine /usr/bin/sudo /usr/bin/dpkg -i /home/borrajax/Documents/$debToInstall\"
expect {
\"Are you sure you want to continue connecting\" { send \"yes\r\"; exp_continue }
\"password\" { send \"myPassword\r\"; exp_continue }
\"[sudo] password\" { send \"myPassword\r\"; exp_continue }
default { exit 1 }
}
" )
retval=$?
return $retval
}
1) I'm not sure if the subshell (or backgrounding) is useful here:
sudo sh -c '( tail -n1 -f /path/to/nameOfLog.log & ) | grep -q "Started .*Application"'
shouldn't a simple pipe do?
sudo sh -c 'tail -n1 -f /path/to/nameOfLog.log | grep -q "Started .*Application"'
2) Your "try 1":
sudo timeout 5 grep -q "Started .*Application" <(tail -n1 -f /path/to/nameOfLog.log &)
expands the input redirection <() on the command line that runs the sudo, not inside sudo. The filehandle it opens isn't passed through sudo to grep, so grep can't open the /dev/fd/63 pseudo-file.
Same thing about backgrounding the tail here, it shouldn't be necessary.
3) And, as phk commented, your "try 2":
sudo sh -c 'timeout 5 grep -q "Started .*Application" <(tail -n1 -f /path/to/nameOfLog.log &)'
...explicitly runs sh, and not bash or any other more featureful shell. Plain standard sh doesn't support <(), and neither does dash which is used as sh on Debian and Ubuntu.
When you run su instead, it runs root's login shell, which is likely to be bash on Ubuntu. But using both sudo and su is redundant, they're both made to elevate privileges, and after sudo you're already running elevated privilege, so no need for su. Instead, if you want to run a shell inside sudo, just say explicitly which one:
sudo bash -c 'timeout 5 grep -q "Started .*Application" <(tail -n1 -f /path/to/nameOfLog.log &)'
Best Answer
You need to remove the double-quotes. It is trying to run a command called "ulimit -Hn" as a single command, spaces and all.
-sneeds to be the lastsudooption on thesudocommand line, and all following arguments are passed to$SHELL -cto execute.I guess the way
-sis processed has changed, as the current way allows you to pass arguments with spaces to$SHELLby escaping them on the command line:The old method of argument handling would split that
'/tmp/foo bar'argument into two, breaking the command.