OPS245 Scripting Exercises dev

What is scripting?

Why write a script?

Scripting is an essential skill for system administrators. A good system administrator (or sysadmin) is a lazy one. They write scripts to automate repetitive tasks such as creating users or backing up files/systems.

Terminal vs script file

A shell script is nothing more than a sequence of shell commands. Any command you put in a shell script can be executed just as well in a terminal. In fact no matter how complex your script is - you can run the entire thing from a terminal window without executing the script. Some of the earliest scripts people learn to create are the commands in the same sequence they would issue them from the command line, only in a script with the appropriate shebang line at the top. You learned about shebang lines in ULI101. The shebang line is the path to the interpreter, and must be the first line of your script.

The Bash shebang line is:

#!/bin/bash

The Python 3 shebang line is :

#!/usr/bin/env python3

Runnning scripts

Running scripts from your current directory or another directory or a directory in the $PATH

You can run a script from your current directory with ./ followed by the script name (without a space). I.E. ./script.bash or ./script.py Alternatively, if the script is in a directory that is specified in your $PATH environment variable you can execute the script by simply typing the name of the script without the ./. You can view your $PATH variable by issuing the command echo $PATH.

Script Permissions

You need to make sure scripts have the execute permission for the user or groups you wish to be able to execute your script. You can add the execute permission with the chmod command, which you learned in ULI101. As a quick refresher, what is the difference between the following commands?

• chmod +x script.bash
• chmod u+x script.bash

Both of the above commands will work. However, the first one gives execute permission to user, groups and other (in otherwords everyone). This is not the most secure way of allowing your scripts to be executed. The second one is a much better practice, which will give only your user execute permission.

Variables

$PWD and pwd, what is the difference?

$PWD is an environment variable that contains the path to your present working directory as an absolute path. pwd is a command that lists your present working directory, as an absolute path.

Exit codes and $?

$? is a special variable that contains the exit code of the last executed command. Linux uses an exit code of 0 to represent success. Any non-zero value represents failure. To check the exit status of the last command use echo $?.

Variables in Bash vs Python

Bash Variables

In ULI101 you learned about Bash variables. You can create a variable in bash at any time. You do not have to assign variable types to variables in Bash. Bash variables are character strings by default, but act as other data types based on the context you use them. For example, when you perform a math operation on two variables in bash they are treated as numbers.

This is how to create a variable in Bash and assign it a value:

number=1

There should be no space between the variable and it's value. Additionally, variable names are alpha-numeric and cannot begin with a number.

To refer to the value stored in a bash variable, you simply use the variable name with a $ in front of it. The $ means the value of that variable. The following example will print out the value of the variable number (which we assigned above) using the echo command:

echo $number

Python Variables

Python variables can be used in the same way as Bash variables (ie you do not need to assign a type when creating the variable). However, Python allows you the option to specify a data type when creating a variable. This is called casting. Python data types and casting is something we may look at later in the course.

This is how to create a variable in Python and assign it a value:

number = 1

Note the difference in spacing when compared to Bash variables. Python variables require a space between the equal sign and the content on either of it.

To refer to the value stored in a Python variable, you do not need a $ in front of it. You simply refer to the variable by name. The following example with print out the value of the variable number (which we assigned above) using the print function:

print(number)

Getting input from the user

• The read command in bash
• the input() function in python

Quotes

• Why use single or double quotes
• The difference between single and double quotes
• Backquotes

Redirecting output

• How to redirect output from a command to a file
• How to pipe output from one command to another command

Basic commands

• cat
• grep
• cut

Conditional statements

Bash

• if
• test, [

Python

• Python has conditional statements, we just haven't covered them yet.

Exercises

You can do these exercises in any order, and change them in any way you like.

• Create a bash script that will print Hello, then list the contents of the / directory, then print Good Bye.
  • Create a python script that does the same thing.
• Create a bash script that will run your other script twice.
  • Run this new script from different locations, and see if it always works. Fix it if it doesn't.
• Create a bash script to display the contents of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens33
  • Pipe the output to cat
    • Pipe that output to cat. See if you understand why that doesn't seem to do anything
• Create a bash script which will use cat and grep to find the line with BOOTPROTO in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens33
  • Modify that script so that it doesn't need cat anymore.
• Create a bash script in which you will create a variable called BP.
  • Assign to that variable the value BOOTPROTO="dhcp" (the equal sign and quotes are part of the value).
  • Use the cut command to retrieve the part between the double-quotes (in this case that's: dhcp).
  • Save the result in a variable, and print that variable.
• Combine the two scripts above into one. The script should tell you what the value of BOOTPROTO from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens33 is.
• Create a python script that will prompt the user for the name of the interface they want to search (e.g. ens33), then prompt them for the parameter they wish to see.
  • Store the responses from the user in variables and use them to grep the appropriate file for the parameter the user asked for. Display it's current value.
  • Note: As we have not covered conditional statements or loops in python yet, you can assume the user always provides usable responses.
• Use the ls and wc commands to find how many log files there are in /var/log/
  • Add a grep command to find how many of a certain type of log file there are (e.g. vmware-network log files)
• Use the history and grep commands to find any command you ran in the past that contained a certain keyword (like .sh or cat)
• Write a bash script which will use the whoami, hostname, date, and lvs commands to create a report.txt file containing all that information.
  • Set it up so that the date (in YYYY-MM-DD format) is in the filename of the report, e.g. report-YYYY-MM-DD.txt
• Write a bash script that will ask the user for a process name, will check whether that process is running, and if it is: it will print "The process is running". If it isn't: it will print "The process is not running".
  • Modify that script to include the number of processes with that name that are running.
• Write a script that will use a for loop and the cut command to get a list of usernames from the /etc/passwd file and print one username perline.
  • For each user: using an if statement check whether the directory /home/thatusername exists and then each line will look like: "user1: home directory does not exist" or "user2: home directory exists".
  • Instead of checking for /home/thatusername check for the home directory in the passwd file line for that user.