Perl Net::SSH doesn't receive prompts - perl

Question

I am writing a script to communicate with a remote server. I understand how to send a basic shell command such as "ls" or "find / |grep foo". But I am executing an interactive application at the other end.
If I call $ssh->shell, I get the prompt from the remote server so I know that SSH is receiving this prompt. But then I can't do anything because the script is blocked in a shell.
I installed two handlers. If I use the script to connect to a basic ssh host, and execute a shell command, the response is delivered to the handlers, so I know they are ok. So I expected the prompt from the application I am executing to be sent to these but it isn't.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Net::SSH::Perl;
my $host = 'rt.olsendata.com';
my $user = 'rtdemo';
my $pass = 'rtdemo';
my %params = ('debug' => 1,'protocol' => 2);
my $ssh = Net::SSH::Perl->new($host, %params);
$ssh->register_handler("stderr", sub{
my ($ssh, $packet) = #_;
receiveerrors($packet);
});
$ssh->register_handler("stdout", sub{
my ($ssh, $packet) = #_;
receivedata($packet);
});
my ($output, $errors, $exit) = $ssh->login($user, $pass);
At this point I need to respond to the prompt by sending a "1". But this is interpreted by the remote host as a shell command, not a response to the prompt. It returns the error "h: 1: No such file or directory".
If you want to try it you can use the demo ssh account at the top of the code. It is publicly available.
Edit: I realise that Expect solves this issue, but I could not find any equivalent to register_handler() in Expect. Am I right in this?

Answer 1

I use expect to automate ssh/sftp sessions.
Net::SSH::Perl provides shell() method for "interactive" sessions. Otherwise, this one, like its brethren, assumes that you're executing a single command on a remote server.

Answer 2

The simplest solution by far is Net::SSH::Expect. Below is the code. Immediately upon login I need to send a "1" in response to the prompt ("1" is the choice I want). Then I get another prompt and since I want the default value I just send \n. Then I want to read the input line by line forever. It works like a charm.
my $ssh = Net::SSH::Expect->new (
host => $host,
user => $user,
password=> $pass,
raw_pty => 1
);
my $login_output = $ssh->login();
my $prompt = $ssh->exec("1");
my $line;
$ssh->send("\n");
while ( defined ($line = $ssh->read_line()) ) {
print "$line\n";
}