Book Image

Python Network Programming

By : Abhishek Ratan, Eric Chou, Pradeeban Kathiravelu, Dr. M. O. Faruque Sarker
Book Image

Python Network Programming

By: Abhishek Ratan, Eric Chou, Pradeeban Kathiravelu, Dr. M. O. Faruque Sarker

Overview of this book

This Learning Path highlights major aspects of Python network programming such as writing simple networking clients, creating and deploying SDN and NFV systems, and extending your network with Mininet. You’ll also learn how to automate legacy and the latest network devices. As you progress through the chapters, you’ll use Python for DevOps and open source tools to test, secure, and analyze your network. Toward the end, you'll develop client-side applications, such as web API clients, email clients, SSH, and FTP, using socket programming. By the end of this Learning Path, you will have learned how to analyze a network's security vulnerabilities using advanced network packet capture and analysis techniques. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: • Practical Network Automation by Abhishek Ratan • Mastering Python Networking by Eric Chou • Python Network Programming Cookbook, Second Edition by Pradeeban Kathiravelu, Dr. M. O. Faruque Sarker
Table of Contents (30 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

Python interpreter and data types


An interpreter, as the name suggests, is used to interpret instructions so that they are understandable by others. In our case, it is used to convert our Python language to a machine-understandable format that governs the flow of instructions that we gave to the machine.

It is also used to convert the set of values and messages given by a machine to a human-readable format in order to give us insights into how our program is being executed.

As mentioned in Chapter 1, Fundamental Concepts, the interpreter that we are focusing on is Python 3.6. I will be using it on the Windows platform, but the site has clear instructions on how to download and install the same on other OS like Unix or Linux machines. Once we install it by downloading it from the Python community  which can be found at URL https://www.python.org/downloads, we can simply click on the setup file to install it. From the installation directory we just need to invoke python.exe, which will invoke...