Command not found: hostname. Check that echo is installed and on $PATH

[iliaselmatani]

Hi there,

Trying to execute the command 'hostname' on an ESXi server but it fails with the error message: Command not found: hostname. Check that echo is installed and on $PATH

The code:

import spur

shell = spur.SshShell(hostname="ESXI-SERVER", username="user1", password="pass1", missing_host_key=spur.ssh.MissingHostKey.accept)
with shell:
    result = shell.run(["hostname"])
print result.output

When executing the command manually using SSH getting the output from the server.

ssh user1@ESXI-SERVER
Password: 
The time and date of this login have been sent to the system logs.

VMware offers supported, powerful system administration tools.  Please
see www.vmware.com/go/sysadmintools for details.

The ESXi Shell can be disabled by an administrative user. See the
vSphere Security documentation for more information.
~ # hostname
ESXI-SERVER
~ # 

Kind regards, Ilias

[mwilliamson]

What happens when you run which hostname? One possible explanation is that hostname is built into your shell, rather than being an actual executable.

[iliaselmatani]

Hi Williamson,

Tried the code

with shell:
    result = shell.run(["which", "hostname"])

But the same result. Hereby also the logs from the ESXI-server.

2014-04-16T14:40:33Z sshd[3142035]: Connection from 1.2.3.4 port 39759
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142035]: Failed password for user1 from 1.2.3.4 port 39759 ssh2
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142038]: pam_per_user: create_subrequest_handle(): doing map lookup for user "user1"
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142038]: pam_per_user: create_subrequest_handle(): creating new subrequest (user="user1", service="system-auth-generic")
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142035]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam for user1 from 1.2.3.4 port 39759 ssh2
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142035]: pam_per_user: create_subrequest_handle(): doing map lookup for user "user1"
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142035]: pam_per_user: create_subrequest_handle(): creating new subrequest (user="user1", service="system-auth-generic")
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142035]: pam_unix(system-auth-generic:session): session opened for user user1 by (uid=0)
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142035]: User 'user1' running command 'command -v 'which' > /dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $?; exec 'which' 'hostname''
2014-04-16T14:40:34Z sshd[3142035]: pam_unix(system-auth-generic:session): session closed for user user1

[mwilliamson]

Sorry, I meant trying to run which manually. I'm not familiar with the ESXi shell -- does it support command -v? Trying to run command -v hostname might be more informative.

[iliaselmatani]

which hostname

~ # which hostname
/bin/hostname

and command -v hostname

~ # command -v hostname
-sh: command: not found

[mwilliamson]

Ah, that's the issue then: Spur uses command -v to determine if a command exists or not. The simplest fix is probably to fall back to using which instead of command -v if the latter doesn't exist (or possibly vice versa). Not sure when I'll have time to publish a fix, but feel free to have a go yourself if you like.

[mwilliamson]

I've committed a potential fix to master. Could you let me know whether that fixes the issue?

[iliaselmatani]

Fixed the issue. Thanks Williamson.

[mwilliamson]

Great, thanks!