Getting unwanted characters when reading command output from SSH server using JSch

Question

I am connecting to the remote server SSH server and trying to get get the list of files in a particular path I am able to get list of files in the path but they were in unre

Answer 1

These are ANSI escape codes that are normally interpreted by a terminal client to pretty [color] print the output.

If the server is correctly configured, you get these only, when you use an interactive terminal. In other words, if you requested a pseudo terminal for the session (what you should not, if you are automating the session).

The JSch automatically requests the pseudo terminal, if you used a "shell" channel, as that is supposed to be used for implementing an interactive terminal.

• If you automate an execution of remote commands, you better use an "exec" channel, as shown in JSch Exec.java example.

• Alternatively, you can prevent JSch from requesting the pseudo terminal by calling setPty. But I do not recommend using "shell" channel. Though if you need to, for whatever reason, you should call setPty(false) in any case, as that will prevent many other similar troubles. I actually already recommended that to you in your previous question.

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Note to others: While I see why OP uses ls command, in general, one should use use SFTP API to retrieve a directory listing, instead of executing ls and parsing its output. Parsing ls output is a pretty unreliable approach.

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Related questions:

• Removing shell stuff (like prompts) from command output in JSch
• Is there a simple way to get rid of junk values that come when you SSH using Python's Paramiko library and fetch output from CLI of a remote machine?

Answer 2

After creating the channel, you can set the pseudo terminal type as "dumb"

ChannelShell channel = (ChannelShell) session.openChannel("shell");
channel.setPtyType("dumb");