Book Image

Hands-On Enterprise Automation with Python

By : Bassem Aly

Book Image

Hands-On Enterprise Automation with Python

By: Bassem Aly

Overview of this book

Hands-On Enterprise Automation with Python starts by covering the set up of a Python environment to perform automation tasks, as well as the modules, libraries, and tools you will be using. We’ll explore examples of network automation tasks using simple Python programs and Ansible. Next, we will walk you through automating administration tasks with Python Fabric, where you will learn to perform server configuration and administration, along with system administration tasks such as user management, database management, and process management. As you progress through this book, you’ll automate several testing services with Python scripts and perform automation tasks on virtual machines and cloud infrastructure with Python. In the concluding chapters, you will cover Python-based offensive security tools and learn how to automate your security tasks. By the end of this book, you will have mastered the skills of automating several system administration tasks with Python.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Free Chapter

Setting Up Our Python Environment

Setting Up Our Python Environment

An introduction to Python

Installing the PyCharm IDE

Exploring some nifty PyCharm features

Common Libraries Used in Automation

Common Libraries Used in Automation

Understanding Python packages

Common Python libraries

Accessing module source code

Setting Up the Network Lab Environment

Setting Up the Network Lab Environment

Technical requirements

When and why to automate the network

Screen scraping versus API automation

Why use Python for network automation?

The future of network automation

Network lab setup

Getting ready – installing EVE-NG

Building an enterprise network topology

Using Python to Manage Network Devices

Using Python to Manage Network Devices

Technical requirements

Using the telnet protocol in Python

Handling IP addresses and networks with netaddr

Sample use cases

Extracting Useful Data from Network Devices

Extracting Useful Data from Network Devices

Technical requirements

Understanding parsers

Introduction to regular expressions

Configuration auditing using CiscoConfParse

Visualizing returned data with matplotLib

Configuration Generator with Python and Jinja2

Configuration Generator with Python and Jinja2

Building a golden configuration with Jinja2

Parallel Execution of Python Script

Parallel Execution of Python Script

How a computer executes your Python script

Python multiprocessing library

Preparing a Lab Environment

Preparing a Lab Environment

Getting the Linux operating system

Creating an automation machine on a hypervisor

Getting started with Cobbler

Using the Subprocess Module

Using the Subprocess Module

The popen() subprocess

Reading stdin, stdout, and stderr

The subprocess call suite

Running System Administration Tasks with Fabric

Running System Administration Tasks with Fabric

Technical requirements

What is Fabric?

Executing your first Fabric file

Other useful features in Fabric

Generating System Reports and System Monitoring

Generating System Reports and System Monitoring

Collecting data from Linux

Managing users in Ansible

Interacting with the Database

Interacting with the Database

Installing MySQL on an automation server

Accessing the MySQL database from Python

Ansible for System Administration

Ansible for System Administration

Ansible terminology

Installing Ansible on Linux

Using Ansible in ad hoc mode

Creating your first playbook

Understanding Ansible conditions, handlers, and loops

Working with Ansible facts

Working with the Ansible template

Creating and Managing VMware Virtual Machines

Creating and Managing VMware Virtual Machines

Setting up the environment

Generating a VMX file using Jinja2

VMware Python clients

Using Ansible playbook to manage instances

Interacting with the OpenStack API

Interacting with the OpenStack API

Understanding RESTful web services

Setting up the environment

Sending requests to the OpenStack keystone

Creating instances from Python

Managing OpenStack instances from Ansible

Automating AWS with Boto3

Automating AWS with Boto3

AWS Python modules

Managing AWS instances

Automating AWS S3 services

Using the Scapy Framework

Using the Scapy Framework

Understanding Scapy

Installing Scapy

Generating packets and network streams using Scapy

Capturing and replaying packets

Building a Network Scanner Using Python

Building a Network Scanner Using Python

Understanding the network scanner

Building a network scanner with Python

Sharing your code on GitHub

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VMware Python clients

VMware products (ESXi and vCenter, which used to manage ESXi) support receiving external API requests through the web service. You can execute the same administration tasks you do on the vSphere client, such as creating a new virtual machine, creating a new vSwitch, or even controlling the vm status, but this time through the supported API that has bindings for many languages, such as Python, Ruby, and Go.

vSphere has a special model for the inventory and everything inside it is an object with specific values. You can access this model and see the actual values for your infrastructure through the Managed Object Browser (MoB) which gives you access to all object details. We will use the official Python bindings from VMware (pyvmomi) to interact with this model and alter the values (or create them) inside the inventory.

It's worth noting that the MoB can...