Windows System Administration: State of the Art on Python?

[Krishna Kirti Das]

I am a long-time user of Perl who comes to you in peace and is
evaluating different scripting languages for use as a scripting
platform for system administrators on the Windows platform. Perl
already has many modules that allow sys admins and devolpers to do
lots of things with the Windows OS, and I'm wondering what the state
of the art is with Python and being able to control and administer a
windows environment. In this regard, how does Python stand up against
Perl?

 

[jay graves]

I am a long-time user of Perl who comes to you in peace and is
evaluating different scripting languages for use as a scripting
platform for system administrators on the Windows platform. Perl
already has many modules that allow sys admins and devolpers to do
lots of things with the Windows OS, and I'm wondering what the state
of the art is with Python and being able to control and administer a
windows environment. In this regard, how does Python stand up against
Perl?

I can't comment on how it stacks up against Perl but I've pointed to
Tim Golden's collection several times. Lots of good stuff there.

http://tgolden.sc.sabren.com/python/index.html

....
Jay

 

[Mike Driscoll]

I am a long-time user of Perl who comes to you in peace and is
evaluating different scripting languages for use as a scripting
platform for system administrators on the Windows platform. Perl
already has many modules that allow sys admins and devolpers to do
lots of things with the Windows OS, and I'm wondering what the state
of the art is with Python and being able to control and administer a
windows environment. In this regard, how does Python stand up against
Perl?

There's the PyWin32 module if you want to do low-level stuff:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/docs/ActivePython/2.5/pywin32/PyWin32.html
http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/docs/ActivePython/2.5/pywin32/win32_modules.html

Or you can "roll-your-own" (sort of) with the ctypes module:

http://docs.python.org/lib/module-ctypes.html

The PyWin32 basically exposes most (if not all) of the Windows API. I
think ctypes is usually used for COM black magic. There's also a
slightly higher level wrapper for WMI that you can use:

http://tgolden.sc.sabren.com/python/wmi.html
http://tgolden.sc.sabren.com/python/wmi_cookbook.html

Tell us what you want to do and we'll tell you if (and maybe how) you
can do it with Python.

Mike

 

[Martin v. Löwis]

I am a long-time user of Perl who comes to you in peace and is

evaluating different scripting languages for use as a scripting
platform for system administrators on the Windows platform. Perl
already has many modules that allow sys admins and devolpers to do
lots of things with the Windows OS, and I'm wondering what the state
of the art is with Python and being able to control and administer a
windows environment. In this regard, how does Python stand up against
Perl?

As everybody else, I cannot compare it to Perl, because I don't know
Perl good enough (or at all, for that matter). I found Python does
*very* well in Windows system administration, in many cases, better
than Visual Basic (IMO, and for the things I wanted to do). I've
mostly used the COM integration, as the things I wanted to manage
had COM (automation) interfaces.

Regards,
Martin