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.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)

Understanding the network scanner

A network scanner is used to scan a provided range of network IDs in both layer 2 and layer 3. It can send requests and analyze responses for hundreds of thousands of computers. Also, you can expand its functionality to show some shared resources, via Samba and NetBIOS protocols, and the content of unprotected data on servers running sharing protocols. Another usage for the network scanner in penetration testing is when a white hat hacker tries to simulate an attack on network resources to find vulnerabilities and to evaluate company security. The final goal of the penetration test is to generate a report with all of the weaknesses in the target system so the origin point can reinforce and enhance security policies against the potential real attack.