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)

Tricks for parsing different files

In this section, we are going to learn about the tricks to use to parse different files. Before we start with the actual parsing, we must read the data first. You need to understand where you will be getting all the data from. But, you must also remember all the log files come in different sizes. To make your task simpler, here is a list to follow:

  • Remember the log files can be either plain text or compressed.
  • All the Log files have a .log extension for a plain text file and log.bz2 for a bzip2 file.
  • You should process the set of files based on their name.
  • All the parsing of log files must be combined into a single report.
  • The tool you are using must operate on all files, from a specified directory or from different directories. Log files from all sub-directories should also be included.