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You're reading from Hands-On Enterprise Automation with Python Automate common administrative and security tasks with Python

Product type Paperback

Published in Jun 2018

Publisher Packt

ISBN-13 9781788998512

Length 398 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

Python

Tools

Ansible

Concepts

Build Automation

Author (1):

Aly

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Table of Contents (25) Chapters

Title Page

Packt Upsell

Contributors

Preface

1. Setting Up Our Python Environment FREE CHAPTER

2. Common Libraries Used in Automation

3. Setting Up the Network Lab Environment

4. Using Python to Manage Network Devices

5. Extracting Useful Data from Network Devices

6. Configuration Generator with Python and Jinja2

7. Parallel Execution of Python Script

8. Preparing a Lab Environment

9. Using the Subprocess Module

10. Running System Administration Tasks with Fabric

11. Generating System Reports and System Monitoring

12. Interacting with the Database

13. Ansible for System Administration

14. Creating and Managing VMware Virtual Machines

15. Interacting with the OpenStack API

16. Automating AWS with Boto3

17. Using the Scapy Framework

18. Building a Network Scanner Using Python

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Index

Getting started with Cobbler

Cobbler is a piece of open source software, used for unattended network-based installation. It leverages multiple tools, such as DHCP, FTP, PXE, and other open source tools (we will explain them later), so that you will have a one-stop shop for automating the OS installation. The target machine (bare metal or a virtual machine) has to support booting from a network on its network interface card (NIC). This function enables the machine to send a DHCP request that hits the Cobbler server, which will take care of the rest.

You can read more about the project on its GitHub page (https://github.com/cobbler/cobbler).

Understanding how Cobbler works

Cobbler depends on multiple tools to provide the Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) functionality to clients. First, it depends on the DHCP service that receives the DHCP broadcast message from the client upon powering on; then, it replies with an IP address, a subnet mask, the next server (TFTP), and finally, the pxeLinux...