Linux Server Hacks, Volume Two

Hack #35. Use script to Save Yourself Time and Train Others

The standard script command ensures repeatability and lends itself nicely to training junior admins.

If you took computer science courses in college, you may have run into the script command before. Professors often want you to hand in the entire contents of an interactive shell session with assignments, so what students often do is simply run script as the first command of their session. That copies all IO taking place in the terminal to a file (named, by default, typescript). When they're done, they just type exit, and they can then turn in the typescript file to the professor.

script has some uses beyond the classroom as well, though. In some stricter production environments, everything that gets done to non-testing, full-production systems has to be "repeatable"—in other words, scripted, thoroughly tested, and documented to the point that someone in change management, with no training in Unix, can do it. One tool that can be used to create the documentation is script. You'll still have to script your procedure into oblivion, using the corporate coding standard, but then you can actually record a session where you invoke the tool and hand it over to the change management personnel, so they can see exactly what they need to do, in order.

One extremely cool feature of the script command is that it can output timing information to a separate file. The entire terminal session can then be replayed later using the scriptreplay ...