I would like to pull a number of files from remote PCs that exist on a VPN. I can do it manually but it's semipainfully slow. Is there a fast way to pull this certain something.txt file from each PC? The PCs are either win2k or XP and firewalled up the yinyang. I have remote control of the machines currently but I'd rather write a script to pull them instead of using my remote software and manually grabbing them.

My first thought is to write a bash script to
1)log onto certain IP addy (only about 105 to log into)
2)'get' file c:\somewhere\something\x.log${unique.identifier}
3)close connection & move on
4)grep the files for the data I needed and somehow make them comma separated or something friendly for Oracle to be able to easily slip them into a table.

Really the only part so far that I need ideas on is the getting of the files. The data manipulation is far less important.

Anyone else have a method of pulling a file from a machine automagically? What would I have to do to the firewall (ie, deny all ftp except from a certain IP going to certain IP)? Am I 'up in the night' (don't answer that)? Ideas? Thx.

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well what you suggest is a logical process of events, but you've not said much about how you do get access to these boxes, so we've not got enough information to fill in any gaps. what kind of "remote control" is it? how are these vpns configured? what kind of vpns are they? what ports are open on the boxes? there are a million ways to move data between boxes, but it's down to what methods are available to you, and we've no idea what they are.

sorry, some that data is a tad too sensative to post, and some I'd have to get from the net admin. What I can say is that the remote control software I have is similar to Timbuktu Pro & UltraVNC -- it has visual control (multimonitor) as well as 'explore' and command line. Client is installed on PCs, manager on my PC.

The PCs are on a VLAN, not VPN. Sorry. I think I'm able to answer one of my questions. I think the application I'd use would be VSFTPD (Very secure ftp). I'd have the firewall policy set to allow VSFTPD through the firewall, use a number of variables set to the IP addys set inside the bash script so I could log into machine X, then Y, then Z. I'd use a non-production linux guest to pull these files down to and run my data manipulation there, then send to the network.

I think my question comes down to: How do I code my bash script to NOT prompt me for anything, but to just take data from my script? I just searched for automating ftp transfers and found this link:
http://linuxgazette.net/issue34/izquierdo.html

This info looks promising. Not sure yet if it will matter that my targets are all Windows machines.

Another one:
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/is/servi...al-hints.phtml

Have you looked at netcat? You might also try installing cgwyn om the windows boxes with ssh and do a key exchange so your script can simply scp files back an forth with out being prompted or you are going to have to write it in perl and use expect. I think an ssh key exchange would be best for what you are doing.

Too sensitive to post... haha yeah sure. knowing that port 22 on a pc somewhere on earth is open is sensitive information.

do you really think you had to mock me?