Book Image

Mastering Python Scripting for System Administrators

By : Ganesh Sanjiv Naik
Book Image

Mastering Python Scripting for System Administrators

By: Ganesh Sanjiv Naik

Overview of this book

Python has evolved over time and extended its features in relation to every possible IT operation. Python is simple to learn, yet has powerful libraries that can be used to build powerful Python scripts for solving real-world problems and automating administrators' routine activities. The objective of this book is to walk through a series of projects that will teach readers Python scripting with each project. This book will initially cover Python installation and quickly revise basic to advanced programming fundamentals. The book will then focus on the development process as a whole, from setup to planning to building different tools. It will include IT administrators' routine activities (text processing, regular expressions, file archiving, and encryption), network administration (socket programming, email handling, the remote controlling of devices using telnet/ssh, and protocols such as SNMP/DHCP), building graphical user interface, working with websites (Apache log file processing, SOAP and REST APIs communication, and web scraping), and database administration (MySQL and similar database data administration, data analytics, and reporting). By the end of this book, you will be able to use the latest features of Python and be able to build powerful tools that will solve challenging, real-world tasks
Table of Contents (21 chapters)

SSH using the Paramiko library

Paramiko is a library that implements the SSHv2 protocol for secure connections to remote devices. Paramiko is a pure Python interface around SSH.

Before using Paramiko, make sure you have installed it properly on your system. If it is not installed, you can install it by running the following command in your Terminal:

$ sudo pip3 install paramiko

Now, we will see an example of using paramiko. For this paramiko connection, we are using a Cisco device. Paramiko supports both password-based and key-pair based authentication for a secure connection with the server. In our script, we are using password-based authentication, which means we check for a password and, if available, authentication is attempted using plain username/password authentication. Before we are going to do SSH to your remote device or multi-layer router, make sure they are configured...