interacting with shell - another newbie question

[Larry Bates]

James wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I work in this annoying company where I have to autheticate myself to
> the company firewall every 30-50 minutes in order to access the
> internet.  (I think it's a checkpoint fw).
> 
> I have to run "telnet what.ever.ip.address 259" then it prompts me
> with userid, then password, then I have to select "1".  Then the
> program closes itself and the internet is enabled.
> 
> I would like to automate this process with Python and run it every 30
> miniutes so I don't have to keep typing in these userid/password
> everytime.  How can this be done?  Is there a module I can use to
> interact with the shell? (I'm running linux)
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> James
> 

You shouldn't have to work through the shell.  Just connect
directly via telnetlib.  Here is an example that you should
be able to modify easily to meet your needs.

http://docs.python.org/lib/telnet-example.html

-Larry