Python version of "facter"?

Question

I'm considering collect server data and in those servers Python 2.6 are pre-installed. Now I wonder if there are Python library correspond to "facter" of Ruby, not the Python "binding" for facter.

I googled about it but couldn't find any. Does anyone have any idea about this?

Can you tell us what you are actually trying to do? What data are you trying to collect? — SingleNegationElimination, Mar 01 '11 at 04:23
Such as FQDN, Kernel release version, io stats at that time and so on. — Yoshi, Mar 01 '11 at 05:45

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 28 '11 at 04:43

I can't see any reason why you wouldn't just use facter itself. The output format is easily consumable from within a python script.

import subprocess
import pprint

def facter2dict( lines ):
        res = {}
        for line in lines:
                k, v = line.split(' => ')
                res[k] = v
        return res

def facter():
        p = subprocess.Popen( ['facter'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE )
        p.wait()
        lines = p.stdout.readlines()
        return facter2dict( lines )

if __name__ == "__main__":
        pprint.pprint( facter() )

For those finding your way here from Google: note that Facter can also produce output in JSON and YAML formats (using the `--json` and `--yaml` flags, respectively). Python has modules available for parsing either of these formats. — larsks, Oct 26 '12 at 00:40

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 31 '12 at 21:37

5

Salt implements a Facter replacement called Grains.

http://docs.saltstack.org/en/latest/ref/modules/index.html#grains-data

There is also an attempt to do this called Phacter

http://code.google.com/p/speed/wiki/Phacter

I haven't tried it, however I agree with the concept. One may not want/be able to install Ruby on their system but want the similar functionality.

answered Oct 31 '12 at 21:37

gregswift

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Unfortunately, Phacter looks dead. Last commit was 25 April 2009 (as of this comment.) Saltstack is very very active. – Green Feb 07 '13 at 21:37
Joy of open source... fork on github is active as of last year. Still not very current... but leaves someone that wants to move it forward the option. https://github.com/radez/phacter – gregswift Mar 04 '13 at 04:52
fwiw... new version of facter itself has moved to C and supports plugable facts in whatever language. – gregswift Oct 18 '17 at 03:40

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 19 '14 at 19:27

Somewhat new http://github.com/hihellobolke/sillyfacter/

Install using

  # Needs pip v1.5
  pip install --upgrade --allow-all-external --allow-unverified netifaces sillyfacter

You may beed to upgrade pip too

  # To upgrade pip
  pip install --ugrade pip

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 14 '13 at 02:29

Here is a more compressed version of @AndrewWalker's suggestion. It also ensures ' => ' is present before splitting and removes the trailing \n :

import subprocess

p = subprocess.Popen( ['facter'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE )
p.wait()
facts = p.stdout.readlines()
# strip removes the trailing \n
facts = dict(k.split(' => ') for k in [s.strip() for s in facts if ' => ' in s])
print facts["architecture"]

I think I am going for facterpy, though. pip install facterpy, then:

import facter

facts = facter.Facter()
print facts["architecture"]

Python version of "facter"?

4 Answers4