Example Python Script - Send Email on Red Alarm

Here is an example Python script which uses the API to check the gateway's ports statuses. The almost-completed script is available as an attachment to this page.

Requirements

• Python

• OpenSSL

• Python Modules

  • sys

  • re

  • mechanize

  • cookielib

  • urllib

  • json

  • pprint

Code

Download the full source code -

1. Start a new python script.

   #!/usr/bin/env python
    
   import sys
   import re
   import mechanize
   import cookielib
   import urllib
   import json
   from pprint import pprint

2. Configure your script with your gateway's IP address and admin password to prepare for the login.

   def main():
       gateway_ip = 'CHANGEME'
       gateway_user = 'admin'
       gateway_pass = 'admin'
       data = {
           'admin_uid': gateway_user,
           'admin_password': gateway_pass
       }
       data_str = '&'.join(['%s=%s' % (k,v) for k,v in data.iteritems()])

3. Create mechanize and cookielib objects using this information and tell the mechanize object about your cookie jar. Submit the login request and test for a successful result.

   # Log in
       req = mechanize.Request("https://%s/admin/main.html" % gateway_ip, data_str)
       cj = cookielib.LWPCookieJar()
       cj.add_cookie_header(req)
       res = mechanize.urlopen(req)
       lines = res.read()
    
       # Response from login is an HTML page. Check that the main page's init()
       # function is called to be sure we have logged in and are looking at
       # the main page.
       if re.search("Welcome,\s+%s" % gateway_user, lines) is None:
           print "Login Failed!"
           return 1

4. Build a call to the connection_status.list method and submit it. On my system, I had to tell json not to put spaces in our string separators, because these spaces were being turned into null characters somewhere down the line, which the Perl json decoder the gateway uses cannot parse.

   # Request connection status
       data = {
           "request" : {
               "method": "connection_status.list",
           }
       }
    
       # Something (mechanize?) doesn't like JSON with spaces in it.
       data_str = json.dumps(data, separators=(',',':'))
    
       req = mechanize.Request("https://%s/json" % gateway_ip, data_str)
       res = mechanize.urlopen(req)

5. Read the result.

   # read
       lines = res.read()
       response = json.loads(lines)
       result = json.loads(response['response']['result'])
    
       # check result
       for interface in result['connection_status']['t1_e1_interfaces']:
           if interface['status_desc'] != 'Up, Active':
               print "%s is down (status '%s') on %s!" % (
                   interface['name'], interface['status_desc'], gateway_ip
               )
               # Send an email, postcard, or pidgeon to the sysadmin

6. Call main().

   sys.exit(main() or 0)