automating telnet session using bash scripts

Write an expect script.

Here is an example:

#!/usr/bin/expect

#If it all goes pear shaped the script will timeout after 20 seconds.
set timeout 20
#First argument is assigned to the variable name
set name [lindex $argv 0]
#Second argument is assigned to the variable user
set user [lindex $argv 1]
#Third argument is assigned to the variable password
set password [lindex $argv 2]
#This spawns the telnet program and connects it to the variable name
spawn telnet $name 
#The script expects login
expect "login:" 
#The script sends the user variable
send "$user "
#The script expects Password
expect "Password:"
#The script sends the password variable
send "$password "
#This hands control of the keyboard over to you (Nice expect feature!)
interact

To run:

./myscript.expect name user password

While I'd suggest using expect, too, for non-interactive use the normal shell commands might suffice. telnet accepts its command on stdin, so you just need to pipe or write the commands into it through heredoc:

telnet 10.1.1.1 <<EOF
remotecommand 1
remotecommand 2
EOF

(Edit: Judging from the comments, the remote command needs some time to process the inputs or the early SIGHUP is not taken gracefully by telnet. In these cases, you might try a short sleep on the input:)

{ echo "remotecommand 1"; echo "remotecommand 2"; sleep 1; } | telnet 10.1.1.1

In any case, if it's getting interactive or anything, use expect.

Telnet is often used when you learn HTTP protocol. I used to use that script as a part of my web-scraper:

echo "open www.example.com 80" 
sleep 2 
echo "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 
echo "Host: www.example.com" 
echo 
echo 
sleep 2

let's say the name of the script is get-page.sh then:

get-page.sh | telnet

will give you a html document.

Hope it will be helpful to someone ;)