Need help with -> `su - vi-admin -c "vifp listservers | awk -F'\t' '{ print $1 }'"`

Linville79 · 10-06-2011, 01:58 PM

So I'm working on a script to collect information from various VMware servers. As part of that script, I'd like to output a header section to the log that lists each of the servers that will be queried.

This command works just fine if I run it from the bash CLI as vi-admin:

Code:

vifp listservers | awk -F'\t' '{ print $1 }

However, it breaks when I put it in a script that is run by root and try to su to vi-admin. Like this:

Code:

echo "Vmware:           "`su - vi-admin -c "vifp listservers | awk -F'\t' '{ print $1 }'"`

It throws an error about $1 being an unbound variable. I assume that this has something to do with awk not being run in a terminal session, causing $1 to not be stdin. I just can't work out the fix.

Any help would be much appreciated. I've spent most of the day working on this one echo statement.

Thanks!

grail · 10-06-2011, 06:38 PM

$1 in your awk script is a field variable local to awk.

$1 in your su script is now a bash variable as everything after -c is quoted so now it is interpreted prior to being
passed su.

Usual story on the command line ... escape escape escape