Execute shell
commands in
subprocess
C O M M A N D L I N E A U TO M AT I O N I N P Y T H O N
Noah Gift
Lecturer, Northwestern & UC Davis & UC
Berkeley | Founder, Pragmatic AI Labs
Using subprocess.run
Simplest way to run shell commands using Python 3.5+
Takes a list of strings
subprocess.run(["ls", "-l"])
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Dealing with Byte Strings
Byte Strings are default in subprocess
res = b'repl 24 0.0 0.0 36072 3144 pts/0 R+ 03:15 0:00 ps aux\n'
print(type(res))
bytes
Byte Strings decode
regular_string = res.decode("utf-8")
'repl 24 0.0 0.0 36072 3144 pts/0 R+ 03:15 0:00 ps aux\n'
print(type(regular_string))
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Unix status codes
Successful completion returns 0
ls -l
echo $?
0
Unsuccessful commands return non-zero values
ls --bogus-flag
echo $?
1
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Checking status codes
Run shell command and assign output
out = run(["ls", "-l"])
CompletedProcess object
subprocess.CompletedProcess
Check status code
print(out.returncode)
0
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Non-zero status codes in subprocess.run
Successful status code
out = run(["ls", "-l"])
print(out.returncode)
Unsuccessful status code
bad_out = run(["ls", "--turbo"])
print(bad_out.returncode)
1
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Control ow for status codes
Handling user input
good_user_input = "-l"
out = run(["ls", good_user_input])
Controlling ow based on response
if out.returncode == 0:
print("Your command was a success")
else:
print("Your command was unsuccesful")
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Practicing executing
shell commands
C O M M A N D L I N E A U TO M AT I O N I N P Y T H O N
Capture output of
shell commands
C O M M A N D L I N E A U TO M AT I O N I N P Y T H O N
Noah Gift
Lecturer, Northwestern & UC Davis & UC
Berkeley | Founder, Pragmatic AI Labs
Using the subprocess.Popen module
Captures the output of shell commands
In bash a directory listing using ls
bash-3.2$ ls
some_file.txt some_other_file.txt
In Python output can be captured with Popen
with Popen(["ls"], stdout=PIPE) as proc:
out = proc.readlines()
print(out)
['some_file.txt','some_other_file.txt']
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
"with" statement
Context manager handles closing le
with open("somefile.txt", "r") as output:
# uses context manager
with Popen(["ls", "/tmp"], stdout=PIPE) as proc:
# perform file operations
Simpli es using Popen
Also simpli es other Python statements like reading les.
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Breaking down a real example
# import Popen and PIPE to manage subprocesses
from subprocess import (Popen, PIPE)
with Popen(["ls", "/tmp"], stdout=PIPE) as proc:
result = proc.stdout.readlines()
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Using communicate
communicate : A way of communicating with streams of a process, including waiting.
proc = subprocess.Popen(...)
# Attempt to communicate for up to 30 seconds
try:
out, err = proc.communicate(timeout=30)
except TimeoutExpired:
# kill the process since a timeout was triggered
proc.kill()
# capture both standard output and standard error
out, error = proc.communicate()
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Using PIPE
PIPE : Connects a standard stream (stdin, stderr, stdout)
One intuition about PIPE is to think of it as tube that connect to other tubes
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Required components of subprocess.Popen
stdout : Captures output of command
stdout.read() : returns output as a string
stdout.readlines() : returns outputs as an interator
shell=False
is default and recommended
# Unsafe!
with Popen("ls -l /tmp", shell=True, stdout=PIPE) as proc:
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Using stderr
stderr: Captures shell stderr (error output)
with Popen(["ls", "/a/bad/path"], stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE) as proc:
print(proc.stderr.read())
stderr output
b'ls: /a/bad/path: No such file or directory\n'
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Analyzing Results
# Printing raw result
print(result)
[b'bar.txt\n', b'foo.txt\n']
#print each file
for file in result:
print(file.strip())
b'bar.txt'
b'foo.txt'
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Practicing with the
subprocess.Popen
Class
C O M M A N D L I N E A U TO M AT I O N I N P Y T H O N
Sending input to
processes
C O M M A N D L I N E A U TO M AT I O N I N P Y T H O N
Noah Gift
Lecturer, Northwestern & UC Davis & UC
Berkeley | Founder, Pragmatic AI Labs
Using Unix Pipes as input
Two ways of connecting input
Popen method
proc1 = Popen(["process_one.sh"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
Popen(["process_two.sh"], stdin=proc1.stdout)
run method (Higher Level Abstraction)
proc1 = run(["process_one.sh"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
run(["process_two.sh"], input=proc1.stdout)
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Input Pipe from Unix
Contents of the directory
ls -l
total 160
-rw-r--r-- 1 staff staff 13 Apr 15 06:56
-rw-r--r-- 1 staff staff 12 Apr 15 06:56 file_9.txt
Sends output of one command to another
ls | wc
20 20 220
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
The string language of Unix Pipes
Strings are the language of shell pipes
Pass strings via STDOUT
echo "never odd or even" | rev
neve ro ddo reven
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Translating between objects and strings
Python objects contain
data
methods
Unix strings are
data only
often columnar
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
User input
Bash uses read .
Python uses input .
Python can also accept input from command-line libraries.
Subprocess can pipe input to scripts that wait for user input.
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Practicing Input
C O M M A N D L I N E A U TO M AT I O N I N P Y T H O N
Passing arguments
safely to shell
commands
C O M M A N D L I N E A U TO M AT I O N I N P Y T H O N
Noah Gift
Lecturer, Northwestern & UC Davis & UC
Berkeley | Founder, Pragmatic AI Labs
User input is unpredictable
Expected input to a script
"/some/dir"
Actual input to a script
"/some/dir && rm -rf /all/your/dirs"
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Understanding shell=True in subprocess
By default shell=False
shell=True allows arbitrary code
Best practice is to avoid shell=True
#shell=False is default
run(["ls", "-l"],shell=False)
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Using the shlex module
shlex can sanitize strings
shlex.split("/tmp && rm -rf /all/my/dirs")
['/tmp', '&&', 'rm', '-rf', '/all/my/dirs']
directory = shlex.split("/tmp")
cmd = ["ls"]
cmd.extend(directory)
run(cmd, shell=True)
CompletedProcess(args=['ls', '/tmp'], returncode=0)
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Defaulting to items in a list
Best practice is using a list
Limits mistakes
with subprocess.Popen(["find", user_input, "-type", "f"],
stdout=subprocess.PIPE) as find:
#do something else in Python....
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
The problem with security by obscurity
House key under the doormat
Key cards for every door
Integrated security is best
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Security best practices for subprocess
Always use shell=False
Assume all users are malicious
Never use security by obscurity
Always use the principle of least privilege
Reduce complexity
COMMAND LINE AUTOMATION IN PYTHON
Security focused
practice!
C O M M A N D L I N E A U TO M AT I O N I N P Y T H O N
