Tag Archives: Python 2.7

Provisioning AWS EC2 Instances with Ansible and Automating Apache deployment with or without using Ansible Dynamic Inventory from Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

This article is being included in my book Provisioning to Amazon AWS using boto3 SDK for Python 3.

Pre-requisites

I’ll use Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

Python 2 is required for Ansible.

Python 3 is required for our programs.

sudo apt install python2 python3 python3-pip
# Install boto for Python 2 for Ansible (alternative way if pip install boto doesn't work for you)
python2 -m pip install boto
# Install Ansible
sudo apt install ansible

If you want to use Dynamic Inventory

So you can use the Python 2 ec2.py and ec2.ini files, adding them as to the /etc/ansible with mask +x, to use the Dynamic Inventory.

You will need to have your credentials set.

I use Environment variables:

#!/bin/bash

export ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=false
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY=AKIXXXXXXXXXXXXXOS
export AWS_SECRET_KEY=e4dXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXY6F

Then use the calls inside the shell script, or assuming that the previous file was named credentiasl.sh use source credentials.sh

ec2.py is written in Python 2, so probably will fail for you as it is invoked by python and your default interpreter will be Python 3.

So edit the first line of /etc/ansible/ec2.py and add:

#!/bin/env python2

Once credentials.sh is sourced, then you can just invoke ec2.py to get the list of your Instances in a JSON format dumped by ec2.py

/etc/ansible/ec2.py --list

You can get that JSON file and load it and get the information you need, filtering by group.

You can call:

/etc/ansible/ec2.py --list > instances.json

Or you can run a Python program that escapes to shell and executes ec2.py –list and loads the Output as a JSON file.

I use my carleslibs here to escape to shell using my class SubProcessUtils. You can install them, they are Open Source, or you can code manually if you prefer importing subprocess Python library and catching the stdout, stderr.

import json
from carleslibs import SubProcessUtils

if __name__ == "__main__":
    s_command = "/etc/ansible/ec2.py"

    o_subprocess = SubProcessUtils()
    i_error_code, s_output, s_error = o_subprocess.execute_command_for_output(s_command, b_shell=True, b_convert_to_ascii=True, b_convert_to_utf8=False)
    if i_error_code != 0:
        print("Error escaping to shell!", i_error_code)
        print(s_error)
        exit(1)

    json = json.loads(s_output)

    d_hosts = json["_meta"]["hostvars"]

    for s_host in d_hosts:
        # You'll get a ip/hostnamename in s_host which is the key
        # You have to check for groups and the value for the key Name, in order to get the Name of the group
        # As an exercise, print(d_hosts[s_host]) and look for:
        # @TODO: Capture the s_group_name
        # @TODO: Capture the s_addres
        if s_group_name == "yourgroup":
             # This filters only the instances with your group name, as you want to create an inventory file just for them
             # That's because you don't want to launch the playbook for all the instances, but for those in your group name in the inventory file.
             a_hostnames.append(s_address)

    # After this you can parse you list a_hostnames and generate an inventory file yourinventoryfile 
    # The [ec2hosts] in your inventory file must match the hosts section in your yaml files
    # You'll execute your playbook with:
    # ansible-playbook -i yourinventoryfile youryamlfile.yaml

So an example of a yaml to install Apache2 in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS spawned instances , let’s call it install_apache2.yaml would be:

---
- name: Update web servers
  hosts: ec2hosts
  remote_user: ubuntu

  tasks:
  - name: Ensure Apache is at the latest version
    apt:
      name: apache2
      state: latest
      update_cache: yes
    become: yes

As you can see the section hosts: in the YAML playbook matches the [ec2hosts] in your inventory file.

You can choose to have your private key certificate .pem file in /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg or if you want to have different certificates per host, add them after the ip/address in your inventory file, like in this example:

[localhost]
127.0.0.1
[ec2hosts]
63.35.186.109	ansible_ssh_private_key_file=ansible.pem

The ansible.pem certificate must have restricted permissions, for example chmod 600 ansible.pem

Then you end by running:

ansible-playbook -i yourinventoryfile install_ubuntu.yaml

If you don’t want to use Dynamic Directory

The first method is to use add_host to print in the screen the properties form the ec2 Instances provisioned.

The trick is to escape to shell, executing ansible-playbook and capturing the output, then parsing the text looking for the ‘public_ip:’

This is the Python 3 code I created:

class AwesomeAnsible:

    def extract_public_ips_from_text(self, s_text=""):
        """
        Extracts the addresses returned by Ansible
        :param s_text:
        :return: Boolean for success, Array with the Ip's
        """

        b_found = False
        a_ips = []

        i_count = 0
        while True:
            i_count += 1
            if i_count > 20:
                print("Breaking look")
                break
            s_substr = "'public_ip': '"
            i_first_pos = s_text.find(s_substr)
            if i_first_pos > -1:
                s_text_sub = s_text[i_first_pos + len(s_substr):]
                # Find the ending delimiter
                i_second_pos = s_text_sub.find("'")
                if i_second_pos > -1:
                    b_found = True
                    s_ip = s_text_sub[0:i_second_pos]
                    a_ips.append(s_ip)
                    s_text_sub = s_text_sub[i_second_pos:]
                    s_text = s_text_sub
                    continue

            # No more Ip's
            break

        return b_found, a_ips

Then you’ll use with something like:

        # Catching the Ip's from the output
        b_success, a_ips = self.extract_public_ips_from_text(s_output)
        if b_success is True:
            print("Public Ips:")
            s_ips = ""
            for s_ip in a_ips:
                print(s_ip)
                s_ips = s_ips + self.get_ip_text_line_for_inventory(s_ip)
            print("Adding Ips to group1_inventory file")
            self.o_fileutils.append_to_file("group1_inventory", s_ips)
            print() 

The get_ip_text_line_for_inventory_method() returns a line for the inventory file, with the ip and the key to use separated by a tab (\t):

    def get_ip_text_line_for_inventory(self, s_ip, s_key_path="ansible.pem"):
        """
        Returns the line to add to the inventory, with the Ip and the keypath
        """
        return s_ip + "\tansible_ssh_private_key_file=" + s_key_path + "\n"

Once you have the inventory file, like this below, you can execute the playbook for your group of hosts:

[localhost]
127.0.0.1
[ec2hosts]
63.35.186.109	ansible_ssh_private_key_file=ansible.pem
ansible-playbook -i yourinventoryfile install_ubuntu.yaml

Alternative way parsing with awk and grep

You can run this Bash Shell Script to get only the public ips when you provision to Amazon AWS EC2 the Instances from your group named group1 in this case:

./launch_aws_instances-group1.sh | grep "public_ip" | awk '{ print $13; }' | tr -d "',"
52.213.232.199

In this example 52.213.232.199 is the Ip from the Instance I provisioned.

So to put it together, from a Python file I generate this Bash file and I escape to shell to execute it:

#!/bin/bash

export ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING=false
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY=AKIXXXXXXXXXXXXXOS
export AWS_SECRET_KEY=e4dXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXY6F

# Generate a new Inventory File
echo "[localhost]" > group1_inventory
echo "127.0.0.1" >> group1_inventory
echo "[ec2hosts]" >> group1_inventory

ansible-playbook -i group1_inventory launch_aws_instances-group1.yaml

I set again the credentials because as this Bash Shell Script is invoked from Python, there are not sourced.

The trick in here is that the launch_aws_instances-group1.yaml file has a task to add the hosts to Ansible’s in memory inventory, and to print the information.

That output is what I scrap from Python and then I use extract_public_ips_from_text() showed before.

So my launch_aws_instances-group1.yaml (which I generate from Python customizing the parameter) looks like this:

# launch_aws_instances.yaml

- hosts: localhost
  connection: local
  gather_facts: False
  vars:
      s_keypair_name: "ansible"
      s_instance_type: "t1.micro"
      s_image: "ami-08edbb0e85d6a0a07"
      s_group: "ansible"
      s_region: "eu-west-1"
      i_exact_count: 1
      s_tag_name: "ansible_group1"
  tasks:

    - name: Provision a set of instances
      ec2:
         key_name: "{{ s_keypair_name }}"
         region: "{{ s_region }}"
         group: "{{ s_group }}"
         instance_type: "{{ s_instance_type }}"
         image: "{{ s_image }}"
         wait: true
         exact_count: "{{ i_exact_count }}"
         count_tag:
            Name: "{{ s_tag_name }}"
         instance_tags:
            Name: "{{ s_tag_name }}"
      register: ec2_ips
      
    - name: Add all instance public IPs to host group
      add_host: hostname={{ item.public_ip }} groups=ec2hosts
      loop: "{{ ec2_ips.instances }}"

In this case I use t1.micro cause I provision to EC2-Classic and not to the default VPC, otherwise I would use t2.micro.

So I have a Security Group named ansible created in Amazon AWS EC2 console as EC2-Classic, and not as VPC.

In this Security group I opened the Inbound HTTP Port and the SSH port for the Ip from I’m provisioning, so Ansible can SSH using the Key ansible.pem

The Public Key has been created and named ansible as well (section key_name under ec2).

The Image used is Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (free tier) for the region eu-west-1 which is my wonderful Ireland.

For the variables (vars) I use the MT Notation, so the prefixes show exactly what we are expecting s_ for Strings i_ for Integers and I never have collisions with reserved names.

It is very important to use the count_tag and instance_tags with the name of the group, as the actions will be using that group name. Remember the idempotency.

The task with the add_host is the one that makes the information for the instances to be displayed, like in this screenshot.

A simple trick to find your Git Submodules imports in Python by adding to Syspath

If you are using Git Submodules, is very probable that at some point you will create you own libraries. Probably those libraries will have their own structure, even with their own tests/ folder and you’re adding into a subfolder into your new project and maybe you have problems using relative imports.

This is a trick you can use to add the relevant root folder of your project to the System Path, so the libraries are found, specially when you call by command line from anywhere in the filesystem. This works for Python2 and Python3.

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import sys
import os

s_path_program = os.path.dirname(__file__)
sys.path.append(s_path_program + '../../')

from clib.src.argsutils import ArgsUtils
from clib.src.datetimeutils import DateTimeUtils
from clib.src.fileutils import FileUtils

This sample can be found in my book Pythom Combat Guide.

Python Combat Guide published

After some work reviewing it and ensuring it has the expected quality, I finally published my book Python Combat Guide.

Is an atypical creation. Is more a Master Class to my best friend, it could be a SDM, TL leading a small Software Development department, a Coder or a Scientist wanting to join IT as programmer and to learn a lot of stuff very quickly, than rather a formal Python Book for learning. Absolutely is not for beginners.

If you want to buy it, to explore the TOC, extended description…

https://leanpub.com/pythoncombatguide

Curiosity Python string.strip() removes just more than white spaces

Another Python curiosity.

If you see the Official Python3 documentation for strip(), it says that strip without parameters will return the string without the leading and trailing white spaces.
Optionally you can pass a string with the characters you want to eliminate.

The official documentation for Python 2 says:

string.strip(s[, chars])

Return a copy of the string with leading and trailing characters removed. If chars is omitted or None, whitespace characters are removed. If given and not None, chars must be a string; the characters in the string will be stripped from the both ends of the string this method is called on.

Changed in version 2.2.3: The chars parameter was added. The chars parameter cannot be passed in earlier 2.2 versions.

https://docs.python.org/2/library/string.html

A white space is a white space. Is not an Enter.
But strip() without parameters will remove white spaces (space), and Enter \n and Tabs \t.

Probably you will not realize that unless you read from a file that has empty lines at the end for a reason, and you use strip().

You can see a demonstration following this small program, that runs the same for Python2 and Python3.

And the corresponding output for python2 and python3:

The [ ] characters where added to show that there are no hidden tabs or similar after.

Here I paste the code so you can try yourself:

import sys


def print_bar():
    print("-----------------------------------------------------")


def print_between_brackets(s_test):
    print("[" + s_test + "]")


s_string_with_enters = "  Testing strip not only removing white spaces, but Enter and Tabs s well\n\t\n\n"

print("Testing .strip()")
print("You are running Python " + sys.version)
print("This is the original string")
print_bar()
print_between_brackets(s_string_with_enters)
print_bar()
print("Now after strip()...")
print_bar()
print_between_brackets(s_string_with_enters.strip())
print_bar()
print("As you can see the Enters and the Tabs have been removed, not just the spaced")

I think this should be disambiguate so I decided to take action. Is very easy to blame and never contribute. Not me. I went to Python to fix that and I located a bug reporting this issue:

https://bugs.python.org/issue25433

The issue was registed and made specially interesting contributions by Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos.

The thread is really interesting to read. I recommend it.

At a glance:

“Python heavily relies on isspace() to detect “whitespace” characters.”

* Lib/string.py near line 23:
  whitespace = ' \t\n\r\v\f'

So all those characters will be stripped in Python2.7 if you use just string.strip()

The ticket was opened the 2015-10-18 12:15. So it’s a shame the documentation has not been updated yet, more than 3 years later. Those are the kind of things, lack of care, that I can’t understand. Not looking for the excellence.

Please, do note that Python3 supports Unicode natively and things are always a bit different than with Python2 and AscII.

Curiosity Python 2.7 and print() from Python 3.6

I lead a project where I decided to go with Python 2.7, for the wide compatibility across all the Servers around.

With RHEL now supporting Python 3 as well, it doesn’t make much sense any more, as all the major brands do support Python 3 directly.

I saw it coming so in my Coding Style Guide for my Team I explained that we will use print(“”) which is the required way to proceed with Python 3, as opposite to print “whatever” from Python 2. Noye Python 2 supports both methods.

But today something unexpected appeared in the Tests. One line of code was making a print of ().

The line of code was:

print()

And not

print("")

And the curiosity is that if you do print() in Python 2.7 it outputs ().

 

A simple sample to print colors in Terminal with Python (local tty or stty in a ssh)

This is a very simple code, but handy.

I love the output for the simplicity and I use to check for my programs to see what will suit best.

#!/bin/env python 
# Collection of Effects
# 1m - Bold
# 2m - Normal Dark colors
# 3m - Italic
# 4m - Underline
# 7m - Background
# 9m - Strikethrough (except 38;9m)
# 40m - Bakground Dark Grey, with the colors in foreground 1 (bold),2,31-37
# 41m - Bakground Red, with the colors in foreground 1 (bold),2,30-37
# 42m - Bakground Green, with the colors in foreground 1 (bold),2,30-37
# 43m - Bakground Yellow, with the colors in foreground 1 (bold),2,30-37
# 44m - Bakground Blue, with the colors in foreground 1 (bold),2,30-37
# 45m - Bakground Violet, with the colors in foreground 1 (bold),2,30-37
# 46m - Bakground Cyan, with the colors in foreground 1 (bold),2,30-37
# 47m - Bakground Grey, with the colors in foreground 1 (bold),2,31-37
# 49m - Normal

CLEAR = "\x1B[0m"

a_s_background = ["1", "2", "3", "4", "7", "9", "40", "41", "42", "43", "44", "45", "46", "47", "49"]
a_s_color = ["1", "2", "31", "32", "33", "34", "35", "36", "37"]

for s_effect in a_s_background:
    s_line = ""
    for s_color in a_s_color:
        s_color_text = "\x1B[" + s_color + ";" + s_effect + "m"
        s_line += s_color_text + s_color + ";" + s_effect + "m" + CLEAR + " "
    print(s_line)
    print("--------------------------------------------")

You can find the source code here:

https://gitlab.com/carles.mateo/blog.carlesmateo.com-source-code/-/blob/master/colors_in_terminal.py

Please, take in count that the colors may be different depending on the Terminal used, so if you’re creating a commercial application I recommend you to try with some of them like: ubuntu terminal, ssh, putty for windows, MobaXTerm…

View from the colors from the Console of PyCharm Community Edition

I like to write Software that does not require from external packages, but if you want to use colors and write a portable program that runs in Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, I recommend you to use colorama.