Celestial Software

At some of our customer sites, I have a host-based script which is invoked by our host application. It sends some control codes to the Procomm Plus (Windows) client that instructs Procomm to receive a file and then send that file to the default printer on the user's PC.
Strangely enough, my script file worked without a flaw for one of our technicians who was using AbsoluteTelnet!
Below are the pertinent (bash) lines from the script file. The "echo" statements send Procomm the commands to (1) receive the file, and (2) "type" the file to the default printer. The "sz" command is the ZModem Send utility.
-----------------------------
echo -e "04GETFILE ZMODEM1204c"
sz $MYNAME
echo -e "04DOS "TYPE \\$MYNAME>PRN"1204c"
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How did this script work with AbsoluteTelnet? Does AT support Procomm Plus "Aspect" scripting?

[ May 16, 2007, 02:42 PM: Message edited by: Brian T. Pence ]

Steve,

AbsoluteTelnet does not support this scripting, but from what you describe below, I would expect the file to transfer, but not print. AbsoluteTelnet will recognize the beginning of the file transfer, even without the GETFILE ZMODEM command.

You can do something similar in Absolute, which requires only the zmodem sz command. Really, any terminal that fully supports zmodem should be able to do it this way. However, depending on the terminal, YMMV.

sz $MYNAME
sz -i "acrord32 /p /h $MYNAME"

The first sz sends the file.
The second sz executes the acrord32 command on the PC side to print the file. A similar command can be used to just view the file:

sz -i "acrord32 $MYNAME"

Brian:

Thanks again for the response.

I never realized "sz" had options like "-i" and "-c". I know the version on our old SCO boxes does not (it rejects both arguments). However the version on our Linux boxes accepts them.
Can you give me some guidance on it's use in conjunction with AbsoluteTelnet? I have tried several attempts but nothing is executed. I tried several different commands, which are find-able via my XP PATH variable (e.g., "calc.exe", "notepad.exe", etc).
I even tried an "internal" Windows command like this (from Linux):
# sz -i "dir"
No error appeared on the Linux side (although the command prompt wouldn't re-appear until I pressed ENTER). But the only thing I saw happen in AT was a dialog box titled "ZModem Receive"; and after a few seconds it disappears.

It might not be in the version you have.

Try this:

http://www.celestialsoftware.net/telnet/AbsoluteTelnet5.39.exe

Brian,
What is the earliest version of A/T in which remote command execution via zmodem was available. I'd like to implement some windows integration features with my charmode linux app using remote commanding, but my clients use a wide variety of A/T versions (going all the way back to 2.85 I think). I'd like to know how many of them I'll be leaving in the dust if I do the new coding. Just found this capability while reviewing the sz man page, and I'm really jazzed about the possibilities, and glad to know that A/T supports it. To do this type of integration in the past I had to have the clients use much more expensive comm packages on their desktop (FacetWin, etc.)
Thanks,
Doug Campbell

I believe that would be 5.44. It's a fairly recent addition.