Introduction to .netrc file:
A .netrc file is used in Unix like operating systems primarily for two purposes:
- To Define login credentials that can be used by commands and tools like ftp, curl and so on.
- To Define macros that automates the file uploads
The .netrc is a hidden file and the default location of the .Netrc file is the $HOME directory.
.netrc file Introduction:
Login Credentials:
Login credentials to a host is specified in the format given below:
machine <HostName> login <UserName> password <password>
HostName - Name of the remote host
UserName - The user name of the login
password - Password of the user
e.g., machine mymacmachine.com login john password accessplease
Macro Definitions:
macdef macro_upload cd /repository bin put todaysbuild.gz quit
Once login is complete, the above line will, change the directory to /repository and copy the file todaysbuild.gz into the directory.
Processing .netrc file using Python:
As mentioned in the Introduction, the .netrc file is used by tools like ftp, curl and others.
Python provides a parser implementation to help parse the .netrc file through the netrc class.
.netrc file reader Example using Python:
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#import the netrc module import netrc
netrc = netrc.netrc() remoteHostName = "mymacmachine.com"
authTokens = netrc.authenticators(remoteHostName)
# Print the access tokens for a specific account print("Remote Host Name:%s"%(remoteHostName)) print("User Name at remote host:%s"%(authTokens[0])) print("Account Password:%s"%(authTokens[1])) print("Password for the user name at remote host:%s"%(authTokens[2]))
# print the macros present in the .netrc file macroDictionary = netrc.macros print(macroDictionary) |
Output of the .netrc file reader Example:
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Remote Host Name:mymacmachine.com User Name at remote host:john Account Password:None Password for the user name at remote host:accessplease {'macro_upload': ['cd /repository bin put todaysbuild.gz quit\n']} |