Net::Telnet, version 3.00 Copyright (c) 1997 Jay Rogers. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. Prerequisite ------------ . Perl Version 5.002 or later . Windows 95/NT requires Perl beta version 5.003_07 or later . No modules are required that don't already come with a standard distribution of Perl. Description ----------- Net::Telnet allows you to make client connections to a TCP port and do network I/O, especially with a port using the TELNET protocol. Simple I/O methods such as print, get, and getline are provided. More sophisticated interactive features are provided because connecting to a TELNET port ultimately means communicating with a program designed for human interaction. Some interactive features include the ability to specify a timeout and to wait for patterns to appear in the input stream, such as the prompt from a command interpreter. This example prints who's logged-on to the remote host sparky: $sparky = new Net::Telnet (Host => "sparky", Timeout => 10, Prompt => '/[$%#>] $/'); $sparky->login($username, $passwd); @lines = $sparky->cmd("/usr/bin/who"); print @lines; $sparky->close; Other reasons to use this class than strictly with a TELNET port are: . You're not familiar with sockets and you want a simple way to make client connections to TCP services. . You want to be able to specify your own time-out while connecting, reading, or writing. . You're communicating with an interactive program at the other end of some socket or pipe and you want to wait for certain patterns to appear. Examples are contained in the POD user documentation. This is an alpha version - meaning that the interface may change in future versions. Contact me, Jay Rogers , if you find any bugs or have suggestions for improvement. Documentation ------------- User documentation in POD format is contained in the module. Installing using "make" places a man page in the perl library under directory "man/man3". Installation ------------ . To install, cd to the directory containing the unpacked distribution and do one of the following: a. Create a makefile by running Makefile.PL using the perl whose library you want to install into and then running make: perl Makefile.PL make test make install b. To install into an alternate library, set the "prefix" argument where you want to install. You can ignore any errors mentioning perllocal.pod. For example: perl Makefile.PL prefix=~/local make test make install c. Alternatively, you can just copy or move Telnet.pm from the distribution into a directory named Net in the Perl library. -- Jay Rogers jay@rgrs.com March 17, 1997