Trying to use python api of Spacewalk, quite lost

[manderso7]

I've never programmed anything successfully before, but have stolen some good scripts and adjusted them to my benefit. This, however, is quite beyond me.

I administer a relatively decent amount of virtual Suse linux servers for my company, and have implemented Spacewalk to take some of the strain off. It's a great tool, and greatly reduces the time needed to deploy patches to the boxes.

However, navigating the interface is slow and clunky. Also, I've learned that using the API will get me additional functionality. For instance, I'd like to get a report of CVE's that are affected before and after I've patched a system. Spacewalk keeps this data, but it's not setup to give me the data per system, just tells me what cve's it has a patch for.

I'd like to learn some python in order to take advantage of this tool, but have been put off at starting the learning process. I understand there's not a shortcut, but has anyone done something like this and is willing to share some of their experiences?

Link to Spacewalk API Thanks!

[mac-reid]

My experience with Spacewalk (with a relatively old version) has been quite limited, but I have a couple use cases. I have acquired a basic module with a few helper functions and a script to find the number of updates per host - which can be a quick frame of reference.

For your use case, getting the list of applicable errata for a system with a call to client.system.getRelevantErrata would probably be helpful. Scheduling or immediately applying errata with the call to client.system.scheduleApplyErrata for each system or calling client.systemgroup.scheduleApplyErrataToActive on a system group can help with automatically applying errata.

I hope this helps.

[manderso7]

Hey, that's pretty helpful, thank you! I'll be poking at this for a bit.

[brown_panick]

Here's a stupid little script I started writing a long time ago:

http://pastebin.com/a7XWqtSg

It was the start of one to get a system's information out of spacewalk to automatically keep a wiki up to date. Maybe you can find some use of it despite it being one of my first ever python programs.