Fabric

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Using Fabric

Install Fabric
- Linux
```
  sudo apt-get install python-pip python-setuptools
  sudo pip install fabric
```
  Or:
```
  sudo apt-get install fabric
```
- Windows
  - http://www.fabfile.org/installing.html#activepython-and-pypm
- OS X
  - http://www.flipflops.org/2013/05/18/installing-hombrew-and-fabric-on-osx/

Create fabfile.py. Ex:

 from fabric.api import run, sudo

 def uname():
 run('uname -a')

 def poweroff():
 sudo('poweroff')

Run fab. Ex:
```
 fab -k -H myserver1,myserver2 uname
```

Specifying username

fab -k -u myuser -H myserver1,myserver2 uname

Running in parallel on multiple servers

fab -IPk -u myuser -H myserver1,myserver2 uname

Capturing output

result = run('grep IPADDR /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*')

Specify user, host, etc in fabfile.py (or in python interpreter)

from fabric.api import env
env.user = 'myuser'
env.host_string = ['myserver1.example.org']

Continue to next task if there’s an error

from fabric.api import env
env.warn_only = True

Continue to next host if there’s an error

from fabric.api import env
env.skip_bad_hosts = True

Running a command as a different user

sudo('whoami', user='tomcat')

Starting/restarting a service

You need to use set -m (http://stackoverflow.com/a/21030592/399105):

sudo('set -m; '/sbin/service httpd restart')

Using parameters with tasks

http://stackoverflow.com/a/8960883/399105

Tasks can be configured to accept parameters. To send parameters to tasks:

fab task:hello
fab task:something=hello
fab task:foo=99,bar=100

Note: parameter values are passed as strings only!

Hiding output of a command

http://stackoverflow.com/a/9621835/399105

from __future__ import with_statement
from fabric.api import hide, run

with hide('output'):
    result = run('ls -1 /opt/vmware/vfabric-tc-server-standard/')

You can also hide the notification that the command is running as well as any warnings:

with hide('output', 'running', 'warnings'):

Or hide everything:

with hide('everything'):

Modifying sudo parameters

For example, to use sudo -i:

from fabric.api import env, sudo

with settings(sudo_prefix='sudo -i -p \'{}\''.format(env.sudo_prompt)):
    sudo(...

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