[Tutor] python newbie..system call help

[Danny Yoo]

On Tue, 12 Jul 2005, Mike Pindzola wrote:

> I have figured many things out. system works, i just forgot to type
> os.system(). I have been looking into the os module and am finding alot
> of useful stuff. I still need to workout the best way to ask a user for
> a root password, show **** when typed and then pass it to the system...

Hi Mike,

For the password thing, you may find the getpass module useful:

    http://www.python.org/doc/lib/module-getpass.html

It'll do that password obscuring stuff for you.


You mentioned earlier, though, that you might want to execute stuff using
su --- have you considered using sudo?

    http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/sudo.html

It might eliminate the need to type root passwords all the time, and if
used properly, sudo's can be safer since it can be configured to provide
access to a subset of commands.


> > Aside from that, just so copying of files, making dirs, and changing
> > file permissions.

For the rest of these, it is possible to use utilities in Python's
standard library instead of shelling out.  Some of these functions live in
the 'shutil' library:

    http://www.python.org/doc/lib/module-shutil.html

and others in the 'os' module that you've been looking at earlier.  For
example, changing the current working directory can be a matter of calling
the os.chdir() function.


If you have more questions, please feel to bring them to the Tutor group.
Good luck to you!