I am working on scripting a process in Python, and in my code I make several command line calls using p = subprocess.Popen(['example', 'command', 'and', 'args'). I recently ran into an issue that several of the command line calls need sudo permissions, and as such the user ends up having to type their sudo password several times, which is not desired.
Is there a way to only spawn one shell instance, and repeatedly use it throughout the program? Can this be done even if the different commands are run from different classes?
Thanks!
For concreteness, suppose your program looked like this:
import subprocess
import shlex
proc = subprocess.Popen(shlex.split('fdisk -l'))
proc.communicate()
proc = subprocess.Popen(shlex.split('fdisk -l'))
proc.communicate()
Running it as a normal user returns no output.
But if you run
% sudo python /path/to/test.py
then you are prompted once for the root password, and both subprocess.Popen commands run as root.
Related
I believe this to be a very simple question, but I have been failing to find a simple answer.
I am running a python program that terminates an AWS cluster (using starcluster). I am just calling a command from my python program using subprocess, something like the following.
subprocess.call('starcluster terminate cluster', shell=True)
The actual command is largely irrelevant for my question but provides some context. This command will begin terminating the cluster, but will prompt for a yes/no input before continuing, like so:
Terminate EBS cluster (y/n)?
How do I automate typing yes from within my python program as input to this prompt?
While possible to do with subprocess alone in somewhat limited way, I would go with pexpect for such interaction, e.g.:
import pexpect
child = pexpect.spawn('starcluster terminate cluster')
child.expect('Terminate EBS cluster (y/n)?')
child.sendline('y')
You can write to stdin using Popen:
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
proc = Popen(['starcluster', 'terminate', 'cluster'], stdin=PIPE)
proc.stdin.write("y\r")
It might be simplest to check the documentation on the target program. Often a flag can be set to answer yes to all prompts, e.g., apt-get -y install.
I'm currently running an OpenELEC (XBMC) installation on a Raspberry Pi and installed a tool named "Hyperion" which takes care of the connected Ambilight. I'm a total noob when it comes to Python-programming, so here's my question:
How can I run a script that checks if a process with a specific string in its name is running and:
kill the process when it's running
start the process when it's not running
The goal of this is to have one script that toggles the Ambilight. Any idea how to achieve this?
You may want to have a look at the subprocess module which can run shell commands from Python. For instance, have a look at this answer. You can then get the stdout from the shell command to a variable. I suspect you are going to need the pidof shell command.
The basic idea would be along the lines of:
import subprocess
try:
subprocess.check_output(["pidof", "-s", "-x", "hyperiond"])
except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
# spawn the process using a shell command with subprocess.Popen
subprocess.Popen("hyperiond")
else:
# kill the process using a shell command with subprocess.call
subprocess.call("kill %s" % output)
I've tested this code in Ubuntu with bash as the process and it works as expected. In your comments you note that you are getting file not found errors. You can try putting the complete path to pidof in your check_output call. This can be found using which pidof from the terminal. The code for my system would then become
subprocess.check_output(["/bin/pidof", "-s", "-x", "hyperiond"])
Your path may differ. On windows adding shell=True to the check_output arguments fixes this issue but I don't think this is relevant for Linux.
Thanks so much for your help #will-hart, I finally got it working. Needed to change some details because the script kept saying that "output" is not defined. Here's how it now looks like:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import subprocess
from subprocess import call
try:
subprocess.check_output(["pidof", "hyperiond"])
except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
subprocess.Popen(["/storage/hyperion/bin/hyperiond.sh", "/storage/.config/hyperion.config.json"])
else:
subprocess.call(["killall", "hyperiond"])
I have a python app that has lots of outputs on the screen which can be used for debugging. out of all the logging techniques, "script" command works well for me because I can see the output on the screen as well as logging it. I want to include that at the beginning of my python app to run automatically and log everything, when I do, however, the python program doesn't run. as soon as I type exit at the terminal (which stops script logging) the app starts working. The command I'm using is:
command="script /tmp/appdebug/debug.txt"
os.system(command)
I have also tried script -q but the same issue is there. Would appreciate any help.
Cheers
Well, I did find the answer for anyone who is interested:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15507602/logging-all-bash-in-and-out-with-script-command
and
Bash script: Using "script" command from a bash script for logging a session
I will keep this question as others might have the same issue and finding those answers wasn't exactly easy :)
Cheers
Try to use subprocess, like so:
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
p = Popen(['script', '/tmp/appdebug/debug.txt'], stderr=PIPE, stdout=PIPE)
stdout, stderr = p.communicate()
script is a wrapper for a session of interactions. Even if it appears to terminate quickly after being started in a shell, this is not so; instead it starts a new shell in which you can interact so that everything is logged to a file.
What does this mean for you?
Your approach of using script cannot work. You start script using os.system which will wait for script to terminate before the next Python statement is executed. script's work will only happen before it terminates (i. e. during the uninteresting waiting period of your Python program).
I propose to use script -c yourprog.py yourprog.log instead. This will execute and wrap the yourprog.py and the session will be stored in yourprog.log.
I have what seems to be a simple use case: I launch a script (python or bash) which runs an emulator from command prompt and then the emulator takes commands until I type ctrl-c or exit. I want to do this same thing from a shell and my code below isn't working. What I am trying to do is test automation so I want to issue commands directly to the application from command shell. In python, I have the following:
import os
import subprocess
command = ['/usr/local/bin/YCTV-SIM.sh', '-Latest'] #emulator for yahoo widgets
process = subprocess.Popen( command, shell=True, stdin=subprocess.PIPE )
time.sleep(12) #wait for launch to finish
print '/widgets 1' #first command to issue
print '/key enter' #second command to issue
process.wait()
As you can see, this is some pretty simple stuff. When 'YCTV-SIM.sh' is launched from the command shell, I am put into an input mode and my key entries are sent to the application shell (YCTV-SIM.sh reads raw input) so ideally, I would be able to pipe text directly to this application shell. So far tho, nothing happens; test outputs to the console window but the application does not respond to the commands that I attempt to issue. I am using python 2.6.3, if that matters, but Python is not required..
Language is immaterial at this point so PERL, Python, Bash, TCL... whatever you can suggest that might help.
You need to redirect stdin of the child process and write into it. See e.g. subprocess.Popen.communicate.
I may not at all understand this correctly, but I am trying to allow a Python program to interface with a subprocess that runs commands as if on a Linux shell.
For example, I want to be able to run "cd /" and then "pwd later in the program and get "/".
I am currently trying to use subprocess.Popen and the communicate() method to send and receive data. The first command, sent with the Popen constructor, runs fine and gives proper output. But I cannot send another command via communicate(input="pwd").
My code so far:
from subprocess i
term=Popen("pwd", stdout=PIPE, stdin=PIPE)
print(flush(term.communicate()))
term.communicate(input="cd /")
print(flush(term.communicate(input="pwd")))
Is there a better way to do this? Thanks.
Also, I am running Python 3.
First of all, you need to understand that running a shell command and running a program aren't the same thing.
Let me give you an example:
>>> import subprocess
>>> subprocess.call(['/bin/echo', '$HOME'])
$HOME
0
>>> subprocess.call(['/bin/echo $HOME'], shell=True)
/home/kkinder
0
Notice that without the shell=True parameter, the text of $HOME is not expanded. That's because the /bin/echo program doesn't parse $HOME, Bash does. What's really happening in the second call is something analogous to this:
>>> subprocess.call(['/bin/bash', '-c', '/bin/echo $HOME'])
/home/kkinder
0
Using the shell=True parameter basically says to the subprocess module, go interpret this text using a shell.
So, you could add shell=True, but then the problem is that once the command finishes, its state is lost. Each application in the stack has its own working directory. So what the directory is will be something like this:
bash - /foo/bar
python - /foo
bash via subprocess - /
After your command executes, the python process's path stays the same and the subprocess's path is discarded once the shell finishes your command.
Basically, what you're asking for isn't practical. What you would need to do is, open a pipe to Bash, interactively feed it commands your user types, then read the output in a non-blocking way. That's going to involve a complicated pipe, threads, etc. Are you sure there's not a better way?