Background:
I have a Windows 7 workstation and use PuTTY for SSH connectivity to Linux servers with session logging enabled. I previously used the Printable output option but that has the benefit of no escape characters but the drawback of making commands I've typed unsearchable if I used tab to autocomplete or backspace because I corrected a typo (or 3) as I was typing the command.
NOTE: I have cygwin installed for additional command-line tool support (i.e. grep, find, etc.).
Recently, I had to go back and find some commands to set the record straight with a coworker about something that happened on a server and the inability to see the final commands I issued is problematic and makes it more difficult to search the logs as well as being much more difficult to readily demonstrate what actually happened for my coworker.
Example #1:
This is an actual PuTTY log file of the 'pwd' command initially misspelled as 'pdw' and then corrected to 'pwd' with Printable output enabled when viewed with cat or in less.
NOTE: There is no difference between less and cat in this case because there are no ESC codes and only printable output was captured.
$ cat 20151112.170705.log
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= PuTTY log 2015.11.12 17:07:05 =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=
[root@eye ~]# pdwwd
/root
[root@eye ~]# exit
logout
$
As you can see, if you were to search for pwd you would get no matching results. I have used iTerm on Mac and know that it can automatically replay logs and it just seems like there should be a way to see the end result of what I eventually used.
Enter the PuTTY All session output logging option. Ok, so here is the deal, with All session output option enabled, the log file gets inundated with ESC codes for terminal color and non-printable characters like backspace.
Example #2:
This is an actual PuTTY log file of the 'pwd' command initially misspelled as 'pdw' and then corrected to 'pwd' with All session output enabled when viewed in less.
$ less 20151112.170457.log
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= PuTTY log 2015.11.12 17:04:57 =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=
Using username "root".
Authenticating with public key "ssh2_rsa_2048_private_key_20111128.ppk"
ESC[?1034hESC]0;root:~^GESC[1;30m[ESC[1;35mrootESC[1;30m@ESC[1;35meye ESC[1;34m~ESC[1;30m]ESC[1;35m# ESC[0mpdESC[ESC[Kwd
/root
ESC]0;root:~^GESC[1;30m[ESC[1;35mrootESC[1;30m@ESC[1;35meye ESC[1;34m~ESC[1;30m]ESC[1;35m# ESC[0mexit
logout
$
Ok, so I'm almost to the actual problem. If I use cat with All session output option enabled, it looks perfect. It is exactly what I want to see and work with.
Example #3:
This is an actual PuTTY log file of the 'pwd' command initially misspelled as 'pdw' and then corrected to 'pwd' with All session output enabled when viewed using cat.
NOTE: This is the exact same log file as above. This is also the exact visible output and format that I want to be able to search.
$ cat 20151112.170457.log
=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= PuTTY log 2015.11.12 17:04:57 =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=
Using username "root".
Authenticating with public key "ssh2_rsa_2048_private_key_20111128.ppk"
[root@eye ~]# pwd
/root
[root@eye ~]# exit
logout
$
The Real Problem I Need to Solve:
How can I programmatically translate, convert, or update the content of these log files so that they only show what is actually visible to the user after processing the log file through cat command with All session output enabled in PuTTY session logging?
For the record, I have spent more than a few hours researching and testing possible solutions. Things I have tried which have not worked suitably (or at all):
- straight-forward redirect of
stdoutto a new file called test.log. The test.log was identical to the original log file. No benefit.
$ cat 20151112.170457.log > test.log
- installing xclip and redirecting
catoutput toxclip. Thexclipprogram complains because I don't have X11 support. Didn't work. No benefit.
$ cat 20151112.170457.log | xclip Error: Can't open display: (null)
using built-in Windows
clipcommand. No complaints from the OS when I run this command, but it has the two problems below instead.- No programmatic way to get the data out of the Windows clipboard
- Even if I could get the data out, the clipboard content is identical to the original log file (with
ESCcodes). No benefit.
I do own a Mac and some of the other posts I read suggest using
pbcopybut I'm skeptical it would work any different than 'clip' on Windows.I am aware of and have used
less -Randless -rto allow handling of terminal colorESCcodes (using-R) and allESCcodes (using-r) but, again, this only helps with presentation to the user and does not allow programmatic searching of hundreds of log files for the commandpwdif I made a mistake and corrected it before pressingEnter.I also talked to coworker. No benefit. ;-)
In essence, I just want the PuTTY log equivalent of a copy/paste of a web page into notepad. The web page source has lots of <html> tags but the user doesn't see any of this and if they highlight the page, click copy and paste into Notepad, all they get is the text they saw on the page.
I want to be able to programmatically create the Notepad equivalent of all these PuTTY log files for effective searching (i.e. using grep).
NOTE: If it isn't obvious from my total StackExchange reputation of 1, this is my first question or post on StackExchange sites. I'm looking for helpful answers and not responses like "Switch to Linux" or "RTFM".
