linux-utils 0.4

Linux system administration tools for Python

linux-utils: Linux system administration tools for Python
=========================================================

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The Python package `linux-utils` provides utility functions that make it easy
to script system administration tasks on Linux_ systems in Python. The
following functionality is currently implemented:

- Parsing of the `/etc/fstab`_ and `/etc/crypttab`_ configuration files.
- A basic Python API for cryptsetup_ and a Python implementation of
cryptdisks_start_ and cryptdisks_stop_ (with a command line interface).

The package is currently tested on cPython 2.6, 2.7, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6 and PyPy
(2.7) on Ubuntu Linux (using `Travis CI`_).

.. contents::
:local:

Installation
------------

The `linux-utils` package is available on PyPI_ which means installation should
be as simple as:

.. code-block:: sh

$ pip install linux-utils

There's actually a multitude of ways to install Python packages (e.g. the `per
user site-packages directory`_, `virtual environments`_ or just installing
system wide) and I have no intention of getting into that discussion here, so
if this intimidates you then read up on your options before returning to these
instructions ;-).

Usage
-----

For details about the Python API please refer to the API documentation
available on `Read the Docs`_.

The Python implementation of cryptdisks_start_ and cryptdisks_stop_ is
available on the command line as two programs:

- ``cryptdisks-start-fallback``
- ``cryptdisks-stop-fallback``

As the names imply these programs are not functional equivalents of their
"official" counterparts, because they only support LUKS encryption and a small
subset of the available encryption options.

History
-------

Back in 2015 I wrote some Python code to parse the Linux configuration files
`/etc/fstab`_ and `/etc/crypttab`_ for use in crypto-drive-manager_. Fast
forward to 2017 and I found myself wanting to use the same functionality
in rsync-system-backup_. Three options presented themselves to me:

1. **Copy/paste the relevant code.** Having to maintain the same code in
multiple places causes lower quality code because having to duplicate the
effort of writing documentation, developing tests and fixing bugs is a very
demotivating endeavor.

In fact sometime in 2016 I *did* copy/paste parts of this code into a
project at work, because I needed similar functionality there. Of course
since then the two implementations have started diverging :-p.

2. **Make crypto-drive-manager a dependency of rsync-system-backup.** Although
this approach is less ugly than copy/pasting the code, it still isn't
exactly elegant because the two projects have nothing to do with each other
apart from working with LUKS encrypted disks on Linux.

3. **Extract the functionality into a new package.** In my opinion this is
clearly the most elegant approach, unfortunately it also requires the most
work from me :-). On the plus side I'm publishing the new package with a
test suite which means less untested code remains in crypto-drive-manager_
(which doesn't have a test suite at the time of writing).

While extracting the code I shortly considered integrating the functionality
into debuntu-tools_, however the `/etc/fstab`_ and `/etc/crypttab`_ parsing
isn't specific to Debian or Ubuntu at all and debuntu-tools_ has several
dependencies that aren't relevant to Linux configuration file parsing.

Since then it has become clear that this was a good choice (not merging the
functionality into debuntu-tools_) because the package now provides a Python
implementation of cryptdisks_start_ and cryptdisks_stop_, which is mostly
useful on Linux systems that *aren't* based on Debian :-).

Contact
-------

The latest version of `linux-utils` is available on PyPI_ and GitHub_. The
documentation is hosted on `Read the Docs`_. For bug reports please create an
issue on GitHub_. If you have questions, suggestions, etc. feel free to send me
an e-mail at `[e-mail]`_.

License
-------

This software is licensed under the `MIT license`_.

© 2017 Peter Odding.

.. External references:

.. _/etc/crypttab: https://manpages.debian.org/crypttab
.. _/etc/fstab: https://manpages.debian.org/fstab
.. _crypto-drive-manager: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/crypto-drive-manager
.. _debuntu-tools: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/debuntu-tools
.. _GitHub: https://github.com/xolox/python-linux-utils
.. _Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
.. _MIT license: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License
.. _per user site-packages directory: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0370/
.. [e-mail]: [e-mail]
.. _PyPI: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/linux-utils
.. _Python Package Index: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/linux-utils
.. _Python: https://www.python.org/
.. _Read the Docs: https://linux-utils.readthedocs.org
.. _rsync-system-backup: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/rsync-system-backup
.. _Travis CI: https://travis-ci.org/xolox/python-linux-utils/builds
.. _virtual environments: http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/dev/virtualenvs/