Using XL Release Remote Script tasks

Remote Script tasks allow XL Release to execute commands on remote hosts using the Overthere framework, a Java library for manipulating files and executing processes on remote hosts. The following Remote Script task types are available:

  • Remote Script: Unix: Execute a shell script on a Unix host via SSH
  • Remote Script: Windows: Execute a batch script on a Microsoft Windows host via WinRM
  • Remote Script: Windows (SSH): Execute a shell script on a Microsoft Windows host via SFTP (available in XL Release 5.0.0 and later)
  • Remote Script: z/OS: Execute a shell script on z/OS (available in XL Release 5.0.0 and later)

In the release flow editor, Remote Script tasks have a blue border.

Features

  • Execute shell scripts on Unix, z/OS, or Microsoft Windows (via Cygwin or WinSSHD) hosts
  • Execute batch scripts on Microsoft Windows hosts. Note: All scripts will be interpreted as batch files; PowerShell is currently not supported.

Common properties

The following properties are common to all Remote Script task types.

Remote script execution details

Property Description
Script The shell script to execute on the remote host (required)
Remote Path The path on the remote host where the script should be executed (required)
Temporary Directory Path Where to store temporary files; this directory will be removed on connection close

Remote host connection

Property Description
Jumpstation The SSH jumpstation or HTTP proxy to use
Address and Port Address and SSH port (or Telnet or WinRM port for Windows) of the remote host (required)
Connection type The SSH connection type to use:

  • UNIX: SCP, SFTP, SU, SUDO, INTERACTIVE_SUDO, SFTP_CYGWIN, or SFTP_WINSSHD
  • Windows: TELNET, WINRM_INTERNAL, or WINRM_NATIVE
  • Windows (SSH): SFTP_CYGWIN, or SFTP_WINSSHD
  • z/OS: This option is not present, and SFTP will be used (unless overridden in the remoteScript.Zos.connectionType setting in the deployit-defaults.properties file)
Tip: The easiest way to connect to a Windows host is to use the WINRM_INTERNAL connection type.

Command output

The following output properties are available:

Property Description
Output The variable in which the standard output will be stored
Err The variable in which the error output will be stored

Note: The output of the remote script task is in markdown format. For more information, refer to Using Markdown in XL Release.

Unix remote script

The following properties are available in the Remote Script: Unix, Remote Script: Windows (SSH), and Remote Script: z/OS task types.

Credentials

Property Description
Username The Unix host user log-in ID (required)
Password The Unix host user password
Private key The private key to use (verbatim) for authentication
Private key file and Passphrase The file containing a private key, and an optional passphrase for the key it contains

You can use a password, a private key, or a private key file and passphrase.

Privilege elevation

Property Description
SUDO username Access files and commands after sudo‘ing to this user
SU username and SU password Access files and commands after su‘ing to this user
Sudo (UNIX only; deprecated) Checking this box effectively means setting the SUDO username to root. This option is provided only for backward compatibility. It is deprecated since XL Release 5.0.0 and will be removed in future.

Windows remote script

The following properties are available in the Remote Script: Windows task type.

Credentials

Property Description
Username and Password The Windows host user log-in ID and password
Allow credential delegation If checked, allow the user’s credentials to be used to access, for example, remote shares (only on WINRM_NATIVE connection type)

Connectivity

Property Description
CIFS Port The port on which the CIFS (SMB) server runs
Windows path to Windows share mappings Mapping from Windows paths to Windows share names; for example, C:\IBM\WebSphere → WebSphereShare
Timeout The WinRM timeout in XML schema duration format; the default value is PT60.000S
Enable HTTPS for WinRM Check this if the remote Windows host supports encrypted connections

Using advanced Overthere functionality

XL Release uses the Overthere framework, which includes several connection options. While the most common options are available in the XL Release GUI, as of XL Release 5.0.0, you can use other options as described in the Overthere documentation.

You can change the default values of options that are not exposed in the GUI in the XL_RELEASE_SERVER_HOME/conf/deployit-defaults.properties file.

If you need to use a different setting for a particular option per task, you can create a type modification in the XL_RELEASE_SERVER_HOME/conf/synthetic.xml file for the task types. In the modification, you can add the desired Overthere connection option as a property on the task. These task properties will automatically be used as connection options for Overthere if the name matches.

For example, to make the connection timeout configurable on each task, add this to synthetic.xml:

 <type-modification type="remoteScript.WindowsSsh">
     <property name="connectionTimeoutMillis" category="input" kind="integer" default="120000"
               description="Number of milliseconds Overthere waits for a connection to a remote host to be established"/>
 </type-modification>
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