How can I store the output of a command I ran using SSH from a Python script into a file?

Question

I want to be able to store the output of a command I run (say top ) on a remote host, from within a Python script using SSH, into a file.

I know how to use SSH( I am currently using Paramiko to connect to the remote device). I need to run the command, and then store the output in a text file.

Answer 1

What have you tried something?

Depend on your command you can do something like this:

ssh user@machine command > log

The log will be saved to your machine. A real example:

ssh root@192.168.x.x ls > log

If your command does not support outputs to stdout, run it like this:

ssh root@192.168.x.x "command -o output; cat output"  > log

With python, you can use subprocess and do the respective command, something like:

import subprocess

def yourfunction():
     subprocess.call("ssh user@machine command > log",shell=False)

yourfunction()

Answer 2

If you use paramiko 's exec_command method to execute the command, you could do something like this:

stdin, stdout, stderr = your_ssh_client_object.exec_command("top")
with open("out.txt", "w") as f:
    f.writelines(stdout.readlines())

If you care about error output too, you need to append it to the same file or store it in a separate one.

( NOTE : The above code is neither tested nor working on it's own, since the OP didn't provide a minimal, workable example himself.