aclient man page

aclient [-%] [-b blocksize] [-bsk socket_size] [-p prompt] host service [-U name] [-Ppassword] [command...]

aclient is a client application of the sk(3) functions. It  transmits commands to aserver(1) running the specified service on the specified host, and receives the result.

-%

 asks to encode the shell-specific characters < > & ? * [ ] ( ) ; (see also the Escaping conventions below)

-b blocksize

 defines the size of logical blocks read from  the standard input and transferred to the server. The default is 4k.

-bsk socket_size

 defines the physical size of socket blocks used in data transmission. The default can be specified via the SK_bsk environment variable; if SK_bsk is not defined, the  default depends on the socket standards, generally 4K.

-p prompt  defines the prompt to be displayed in case of  interactive mode. The default is

host/service.

host  designates the name of the host where the specified  service is available.

service  designates the service, either as a name appearing  in the /etc/services(5) file, or as a number in the 1024-2047  range. The same service must be used by aserver.

-Uname

 specifies a name that can be recognized by the  Server (see sk(3), authorisation file).

-Ppassword

 specifies the password associated to the -U name (see sk(3), authorisation file).

command  specifies what has to be executed by service  at host; a semi-colon (;) may be used as a separate  argument to delimit commands. When no command is given as  arguments, aclient waits for commands in the standard input.

Data are normally transferred via the standard input and output. A first solution therefore consists in specifying the command for  data transfer as options, e.g.

aclient host service_file Write /tmp/copy < myinput

There are redirection possibilities but unlike sh(1) these  redirections must be specified before the command. The example  above could be executed as:

aclient host service_file
host/service_file> <myinput Write /tmp/copy
host/service_file> ...

Note that file names may be replaced by pipes for names starting  with the | character; if blanks are embedded, the command have to  be quoted. For instance, to write the list of files to a foreign  file: aclient host service_file
host/service_file><"|ls -l" Write /tmp/copy
host/service_file> ...

Since aclient connects to aserver where a shell is  executed, a special convention (similar to http queries) is available  to escape special characters and define arguments with special  characters to the server program. This convention uses %{...} to define parameters with special characters (like blank, asterisks, etc).

SK_bsk is used by aclient as the default -bsk option.

1. Query a catalog on cocat1:
   aclient cocat1 1660 gsc1.2 -c 123.12-78.12 -r 1.5 -sr
2. Copy a file to cocat1
   aclient cocat1 1660 save < /etc/passwd
   returns the name of the remote file
3. List remote files having a name wich contains an asterisk:
   aclient cocat1 1660 ls *%{*}*
4. Find the star ** STT 82AA' in the last version of edited  simbad:
   aclient -% newviz 1660 sim.arg 0 "** STT 82AA'"
   which gives the same result as
   aclient newviz 1660 sim.arg 0 "%** STT 82AA'"
5. Rewind the tape /dev/nrst0 and get its status on the foreign host using the rtape(4) service.
   aclient foreign rtape setenv TAPE /dev/nrst0 \; mt stat \; mt rew \; mt stat

aserver(1) pipe(2) sk(3) services(5)

sk(3).