Revision history for Control-CLI
1.00 2011-03-27
First version, released on an unsuspecting world.
1.01 2011-04-03
* Module installation test script now requires (build_requires) Net::Telnet
* Changed test script for detection of Serial port under unix which was not working on most Linux systems
* Ported Device::SerialPort ability to manually specify a TESTPORT=<DEVICE> when running Makefile.PL/Build.PL
* Added use of Exporter module for optionally importing class methods
1.02 2011-05-08
* Still a few Linux systems where my serial port detection failed; modified the test script
* Corrected uninitialized $fh warning in input_log, output_log, dump_log when no argument and telnet connection
1.03 2011-08-24
* Implemented eof() method
* Corrected sleep timer in readwait() which was doing non-blocking reads much faster than 0.1 seconds intervals
* Corrected read() which was not logging to input/dump logs in non-blocking mode for SSH & Serial, if read buffer was "0"
* Login stage variable was not re-initialized correctly after a disconnect(); could cause errors on subsequent login()
1.04 2013-01-04
* Reversed a change made in 1.03 under readwait, older versions of Perl generate a warning when doing length(undef)
* Net-SSH2's eof does not seem to work; modified eof method to make it behave consistently for both Telnet & SSH
* SSH stderr is now merged onto regular channel; using Net-SSH2 ext_data('merge') call
* Implemented ssh_channel() method to be able to return underlying SSH channel object
* Module now detects errors from SerialPort's read_const_time used before reads and updates eof
* When errmode() is set to $arrayref the error message is now appended as the last argument to &$coderef
* Added an interactive mode to the test script so that a connection to a device can be easily tested after installation
* Enhanced alternative form of login() method allows login sequence/banner to be captured and returned
* Modified default login/password prompts expected by login() method
* Implemented break() method
* No more calls to debug() method when the debug level is not changed; eliminates carping from Device::SerialPort
1.05 2013-08-25
* As of this version, Telnet & SSH connections can now be run over IPv6, as long as IO::Socket::IP is installed
* SSH failed connection now gives error message "SSH unable to connect" instead of "SSH unable to password authenticate"
* Net-SSH2 (libssh2) eof still not working, and now returning a different error on disconnection; updated eof method
* Some devices have a crude SSH implementation with no authentication and instead use an interactive login after the SSH
connection is established (just like Telnet does); the connect() method is now changed to allow these SSH connections
* Added connection_timeout for Telnet and SSH connections; previously no consistent connection timeout was enforced
* Method connect() now accepts '$host [$port]' which will work for IPv6 addresses; syntax '$host[:$port]' is deprecated
* Serial port disconnect() now flushes recent writes before closing the connection; needed with Device::SerialPort
* Method waitfor() now catches invalid Perl regular expression patterns passed to it and performs the error mode action
* Added a flush_credentials method to undefine stored credentials
* Code changes to pass Perl Critic severity 4 and above violations
1.06 2014-04-21
* Method login() in list context did not return output received from host device if the login failed
* Version 1.05 on MSWin32 was not working anymore with newest Net::Telnet 3.04 (due to bug id 94913); added workaround
2.00 2014-12-31
* As of this version, methods connect(), login(), cmd() and waitfor() support a non-blocking mode for
which they now have a poll method: connect_poll(), login_poll(), cmd_poll() and waitfor_poll()
* New generic non-blocking poll() object/class method to poll multiple objects of this class simultaneously
* Method waitfor() was incorrectly setting s option on match, i.e. treating string as single line (. matches a newline)
* Method change_baudrate() was incorrectly returning undef if the requested baudrate was already set
* Error mode 'die' would always show CLI.pm as the die file and not the actual file where the error occurred
* Error message for blocking read() timeout was incorrectly reported as "Received eof from connection"
* Timer for readwait() method, previously hard coded to 100 millisecs, is now configurable via readwait_timer() method
* Method break() now accepts a configurable duration argument for generating break signal over serial port connections
* Prompt_credentials now resets Term::ReadKey ReadMode to whatever was in use before calling connect() / login()
* Debug levels are now bit based; only bits 1 & 2 are defined in this class; new debugMsg() method for sub-classes
* Added a socket method to return the IO::Socket::IP or IO::Socket::INET object
* Fixed "Can't call method "ext_data" on an undefined value at Control/CLI.pm line X" which was caused by SSH
connecting to a device that only accepts publickey authentication, with no keys provided
* SSH & Serial, methods input_log, output_log and dump_log were not returning the filehandle when called with no arguments
* All methods now handle error mode correctly if called before a connection is established or after disconnect
* Added a connected() method to check status of connection
* Carp messages from Win32::SerialPort are now always suppressed, unless debug level is active on bit1
* Method change_baudrate() now can also be used to change Parity, Databits, Stopbits and Handshake settings
* Method read(Blocking => 1, Timeout => $secs) using Device::SerialPort was ignoring the Timeout argument
* SSH connect() is now able to also handle keyboard-interactive authentication method
2.01 2015-03-08
* poll_read() and poll_readwait() were not catching errors from non-blocking read in non-blocking poll mode
* change_baudrate() was not working properly on some devices; had to add a 100ms delay between tearing down and restarting
the connection; to avoid this delay in non-blocking mode, the method is now pollable via new poll_change_baudrate()
* prompt_credentials can now be set either as a code ref or as an array ref where the 1st element is a code ref
* poll() poll_code argument will now also accept an array ref where the 1st element is a code ref
* 2.00 destroy method could cause: (in cleanup) Can't call method X on an undefined value ... during global destruction
2.02 2016-02-07
* Added data_with_error() and argument to readwait() for handling case where some data is read followed by a read error
* Sub-classing method syntax changed to more flexible hash style arguments (old list style format still accepted)
* Added match_list argument to waitfor() method
* When setting error mode or prompt_credentials or poll() poll_code to an array ref with 1st element a code ref, this was
working on the first call but not in subsequent calls as the array was shifted in callCodeRef during the first call
* Sub-classing method poll_readwait() was incorrectly triggering error mode action twice on non-blocking read error
* Net::Telnet always appends a null character to carriage returns which are not followed by a line feed, which becomes
a problem (inability to login) when the output_record_separator is set to just carriage return, as required by certain
devices. Control::CLI is now enhanced with logic to prevent Net::Telnet from behaving in that manner. The new logic
consists of resetting Net::Telnet's telnetmode to 0 for the duration of any transmits over the Telnet connection.
This new logic only applies to Telnet use and only when output_record_separator() has been set to just carriage return
* Added terminal_type() and window_size() methods to negotiate terminal parameters for both SSH and Telnet connections
* Added ssh_authentication() method to indicate the ssh authentication used: publickey, password or keyboard-interactive
2.03 2016-04-20
* Methods input_log(), output_log() and dump_log(), when called with no argument were not returning the open filehandle
but an undefined or empty value; this problem was happening only for Telnet connections
* Added callback argument to connect() which can be used to verify the SSH host key against a list of known host keys
* Added errmsg_format() method and argument to errmsg(); it is now possible to specify the format of error messages
* Added host() method to retrieve hostname or IP address which was supplied to connect()
2.04 2017-06-14
* Added functionality to detect Query Device Status escape sequence within the received data stream and automatically
send back Report Device OK escape sequence; this can be activated via new report_query_status() method
* Added close_logs argument to disconnect() and close() methods to allow all logging filehandles to be closed on
disconnect
* On a serial port connection the class destructor could result in error:
uninitialized value in subroutine entry at /lib/Win32API/CommPort.pm line 247
* Returned error messages, in any errmsg_format, now always start with upper case
* Debug level bit-2 now produces a lot more debug for issues relating to Device::SerialPort & Win32::SerialPort
* Module now correctly detects underlying failures from Win32::SerialPort & Device::SerialPort to set the desired
baudrate, handshake, parity, databits and stopbits and will now perform the configured error mode action
* Added ForceBaud argument to connect() and change_baudrate() methods as a workaround for Win32::SerialPort module
bug https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=120068 which would otherwise result in this module not being able
to set the desired baudrate on some USB Serial ports
* Non-blocking read method was no longer working correctly with newest versions of Net::SSH2 (0.63) and libssh2
(1.7.0) due to some backwards incompatible changes made in Net::SSH2; the fix now works with both new and old
versions of Net::SSH2
* Net::SSH2 version 0.58 error method suffers from a memory leak; this is fixed with latest Net::SSH2 version 0.63
and libssh2 version 1.7.0. The eof method from this class, which relies on the Net::SSH2 error method, has been
changed to reduce in half the number of calls made to the Net::SSH2 error method (in case an older version of
Net::SSH2 is being used)
2.05 2017-06-16
* Same as version 2.04; bumped up the version to fix a problem with the bundled control-cli.t test script
2.06 2017-12-09
* Method poll() did not scale well with many SSH connections due to the partially blocking nature of SSH
authentication which could cumlatively make all objects timeout; algorithm is now optimized to re-credit a
cycle time duration to the underlying object timeouts so as to compensate and allow the deisred scaling.
The changes also improve the frequency of calling the poll_code, which can now be called in between objects
when these take longer than the poll_timer to complete a poll, instead of only at the end of a full cycle
* New "atomic_connect" argument for the connect() method for use in non-blocking mode, with SSH, when many
class objects are polled via Control::CLI poll() method, it allows the connect() method to treat socket
setup + SSH authentication as one single poll action to prevent the far end from timing out the connection
if a delay is seen between socket setup and SSH authentication
2.07 2018-09-02
* Method login() now will accept an empty password, for devices where no password is set but still prompt for
a password on connection
* Modified poll_return() method to properly handle 'output_result' in the form of a hash reference. Now polled
methods can return a hash reference (previously only scalar, array and array reference were possible).
* Changed default username_prompt to: '(?i:user ?name|login)[: ]*$'
2.08 2020-02-26
* Changed username prompt to '(?i:user(?: ?name)?|login)[: ]+$' regex so as to also work with a "User:" prompt
* Method login() now will accept an empty password, for devices where no password is set but still prompt for
a password on connection
* Optimized stripLastLine() to use correct and more efficient regex \z assertion
* SSH errors originating from known_hosts verification were not not prepended with the Control::CLI method