[SOLVED] Perl system command returns "mkdir /tmp/test.xxxxx: No such file or directory"

Issue

I am trying to use Perl system command to ssh to another server and run the mkdir command but it always returns

mkdir /tmp/test.xxxxx: No such file or directory

while if I manually ssh and run the same command it works fine. Here is the code I wrote:

my $TEMPDIR = '/tmp/test.xxxxx';
system "$SSH $SSH_USER\@$TESTSVR \"mkdir $TEMPDIR\""  or die " $!\n";

Solution

system doesn't return false on error. And $! isn't necessarily set on error, depending on what you call an error.

system(...);
die "Can't launch child: $!\n" if $? == -1;
die "Child killed by signal ".( $? & 0x7F )."\n" if $? & 0x7F;
die "Child exited with error ".( $? >> 8 )."\n" if  $? >> 8;

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It's worth noting your have multiple code injection bugs which are easily fix by using the following:

system($SSH, "$SSH_USER\@$TESTSVR", "mkdir", $TEMPDIR)

Answered By - ikegami