Send commands over socket, but wait every time for response (Node.js) - sockets

Question

I need to send several commands over telnet to a server. If I try to send them without a time delay between every command, the server freaks out:
var net = require('net');
var conn = net.createConnection(8888, 'localhost');
conn.on('connect', function() {
conn.write(command_1);
conn.write(command_2);
conn.write(command_3);
//...
conn.write(command_n);
})
I guess the server needs some time to respond to command n before I send it command n+1. One way is to write something to the log and fake a "wait":
var net = require('net');
var conn = net.createConnection(8888, 'localhost');
conn.on('connect', function() {
console.log('connected to server');
console.log('I'm about to send command #1');
conn.write(command_1);
console.log('I'm about to send command #2');
conn.write(command_2);
console.log('I'm about to send command #3');
conn.write(command_3);
//...
console.log('I'm about to send command #n');
conn.write(command_n);
})
It might also be the fact that conn.write() is asynchronous, and putting one command after another doesn't guranty the correct order??
Anyway, what is the correct pattern to assure correct order and enough time between two consecutive commands, for the server to respond?

Answer 1

First things first: if this is truly a telnet server, then you should do something with the telnet handshaking (where terminal options are negotiated between the peers, this is the binary data you can see when opening the socket).
If you don't want to get into that (it will depend on your needs), you can ignore the negotiation and go straight to business, but you will have to read this data and ignore it yourself.
Now, in your code, you're sending the data as soon as the server accepts the connection. This may be the cause of your troubles. You're not supposed to "wait" for the response, the response will get to you asynchronously thanks to nodejs :) So you just need to send the commands as soon as you get the "right" response from the server (this is actually useful, because you can see if there were any errors, etc).
I've tried this code (based on yours) against a device I've got at hand that has a telnet server. It will do a login and then a logout. See how the events are dispatched according to the sever's response:
var net = require('net');
var conn = net.createConnection(23, '1.1.1.1');
var commands = [ "logout\n" ];
var i = 0;
conn.setEncoding('ascii');
conn.on('connect', function() {
conn.on('login', function () {
conn.write('myUsername\n');
});
conn.on('password', function () {
conn.write('myPassword\n');
});
conn.on('prompt', function () {
conn.write(commands[i]);
i++;
});
conn.on('data', function(data) {
console.log("got: " + data + "\n");
if (data.indexOf("login") != -1) {
conn.emit('login');
}
if (data.indexOf("password") != -1) {
conn.emit('password');
}
if (data.indexOf(">#") != -1) {
conn.emit('prompt');
}
});
});
See how the commands are in an array, where you can iteratively send them (the prompt event will trigger the next command). So the right response from the server is the next prompt. When the server sends (in this case) the string ># another command is sent.
Hope it helps :)

Answer 2

The order of writes is guaranteed. However:
You must subscribe to data event. conn.on('data', function(data)
{}) will do.
You must check return values of writes - if a write
fails, you must wait for 'drain' event. So you should check if any
write really fails and if it does then fix the problem. If it
doesn't - then you can leave current dirty solution as is.
You
must check if your server supports request piplining (sending
multiple requests without waiting for responses). If it doesn't -
you must not send next request before receiving a data event after
the previous one.
You must ensure that the commands you send are real telnet commands - telnet expects a \0 byte after \r\n (see the RFC), so certain servers may freak if \0 is not present.
So:
var net = require('net');
var conn = net.createConnection(8888, 'localhost');
conn.on('connect', function() {
console.log(conn.write(command_1) &&
conn.write(command_2) &&
conn.write(command_3) &&
//...
conn.write(command_n))
})
conn.on('data', function () {})
If it writes false - then you must wait for 'drain'. If it writes true - you must implement waiting. I discourage the event-based solution and suggest to look at using async or Step NPM modules instead.