How Python Saves My Time: Automating Repetitive Tasks in Everyday Work

Hello friends,

Today, I have a new and different topic to discuss: Python programming. I am currently working as a Network engineer in ISP and part-time I do bug hunting, Python saves me a lot of time because I have repetitive daily tasks that can be tedious and time-consuming. I am sure there have been plenty of times when you wished for a simpler way to approach and accomplish a mundane task. Repetitive tasks can be a drag and hamper your creativity and productivity in other areas of your work and life.

Why I Choose Python for Automation

Python is a popular programming language choice among software developers because of its easy-to-understand syntax. Python code mirrors the English language a lot more closely than many other programming languages. Additionally, Python code tends to be more compact and requires fewer lines of code than other languages to accomplish the same tasks. Another important feature of Python is its use in multiple fields, such as network automation and web scraping.

1. Internet Speed tester

As mentioned above, I work for an ISP, so I must check the speed test every morning. This script's primary purpose is to automate internet speed tests for multiple internet service providers (ISPs) and save the results to a CSV file for analysis.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver import Chrome, ChromeOptions
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
import time
import urllib.parse
import pandas as pd
import warnings
import platform
import requests

# Determine if the OS is Windows or Linux
os_type = platform.system()


warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')

chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--log-level=3") 
chrome_options.add_argument("--start-maximized")
chrome_options.add_argument("--ignore-certificate-errors-spki-list")

if os_type == "Windows":
    service = Service(executable_path='C:/chromedriver/chromedriver.exe')
elif os_type == "Linux":
    service = Service(executable_path='/usr/local/bin/chromedriver')
    
chrome_options.add_argument("--ignore-certificate-errors-spki-list")
browser = webdriver.Chrome(service=service, options=chrome_options)



airtel_server = 'Bharti Airtel Ltd'
youfiber_server = 'YouFibre'
kvbl_server = 'Keralavision Broadband Ltd'

tablelist = []

def speed_test(server,connection_type):
    # Open website
    browser.get('https://www.speedtest.net/')
    browser.maximize_window()
    time.sleep(5)

    # Connection type(single/multi)
    # Multi
    if connection_type == 'multi':
        browser.find_element('xpath',"/html/body/div[3]/div/div[3]/div/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/div[3]/div/div[5]/div/div/a[1]").click()
    # Signal
    if connection_type == 'single':
        browser.find_element('xpath',"/html/body/div[3]/div/div[3]/div/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/div[3]/div/div[5]/div/div/a[3]").click()

    # Select server
    browser.find_element('xpath',"/html/body/div[3]/div/div[3]/div/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/div[3]/div/div[4]/div/div[3]/div/div/div[4]/a").click()
    username_input = browser.find_element("xpath","/html/body/div[3]/div/div[3]/div/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/div[3]/div/div[7]/div/div/div/div[3]/form/div/input")
    username_input.send_keys(server)
    time.sleep(2)

    if server == 'Keralavision Broadband Ltd':
        try:
            browser.find_element('xpath',"/html/body/div[3]/div/div[3]/div/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/div[3]/div/div[7]/div/div/div/div[3]/div/div/ul/li[2]/a").click()
        except:
            browser.find_element('xpath',"/html/body/div[3]/div/div[3]/div/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/div[3]/div/div[7]/div/div/div/div[3]/div/div/ul/li[1]/a").click()
        time.sleep(2)
    else:
        browser.find_element('xpath',"/html/body/div[3]/div/div[3]/div/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/div[3]/div/div[7]/div/div/div/div[3]/div/div/ul/li[1]/a").click()
        time.sleep(2)

    # Click go button to start speed test
    browser.find_element('xpath',"/html/body/div[3]/div/div[3]/div/div/div/div[2]/div[3]/div[1]/a/span[4]").click()
    time.sleep(50)

    # Get Download and Upload speed from page
    download_speed = browser.find_element('class name','download-speed').text
    upload_speed = browser.find_element('class name','upload-speed').text
    time.sleep(1)

    print(download_speed)
    print(upload_speed)



    return download_speed, upload_speed


def get_public_ip():
    response = requests.get('https://httpbin.org/ip')
    if response.status_code == 200:
        return response.json().get('origin')
    return None


public_ip = get_public_ip()
if public_ip:
    print(f"Your public IP is: {public_ip}")
else:
    print("Could not retrieve public IP")

kvbl_multi_download, kvbl_multi_upload = speed_test(kvbl_server,connection_type='multi')
kvbl_single_download, kvbl_single_upload = speed_test(kvbl_server,connection_type='single')

data = {
                    "mutil_download": f'{kvbl_multi_download} Mbps',
                    "mutil_upload": f'{kvbl_multi_upload} Mbps',
                    "single_download": f'{kvbl_single_download} Mbps',
                    "single_upload": f'{kvbl_single_upload} Mbps',
                }

tablelist.append(data)

airtel_multi_download, airtel_multi_upload = speed_test(airtel_server,connection_type='multi')
airtel_single_download, airtel_single_upload = speed_test(airtel_server,connection_type='single')


data = {
                    "mutil_download": f'{airtel_multi_download} Mbps',
                    "mutil_upload": f'{airtel_multi_upload} Mbps',
                    "single_download": f'{airtel_single_download} Mbps',
                    "single_upload": f'{airtel_single_upload} Mbps',
                }

tablelist.append(data)

youfiber_multi_download, youfiber_multi_upload = speed_test(youfiber_server,connection_type='multi')
youfiber_single_download, youfiber_single_upload = speed_test(youfiber_server,connection_type='single')

data = {
                    "mutil_download": f'{youfiber_multi_download} Mbps',
                    "mutil_upload": f'{youfiber_multi_upload} Mbps',
                    "single_download": f'{youfiber_single_download} Mbps',
                    "single_upload": f'{youfiber_single_upload} Mbps',
                }


    
tablelist.append(data)

df = pd.DataFrame(tablelist)
df.to_csv(f'output.csv')

2. Ticket creator

I create around 30 tickets daily and submit work reports. On average, it takes 45 minutes to complete this task manually. This is the most time-consuming and boring part of my work. This Python script automates the process of creating customer tickets and scraping their details from a web application using Selenium for browser automation and openpyxl for Excel file manipulation.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
import time
import pandas as pd
import warnings
import json
from openpyxl import Workbook, load_workbook
import time
from datetime import datetime
import sys
import platform, os

# Determine if the OS is Windows or Linux
os_type = platform.system()

warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')

chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--log-level=3") 
chrome_options.add_argument("--start-maximized")

#chrome_options.add_argument("--headless")
if os_type == "Windows":
    service = Service(executable_path='C:/chromedriver/chromedriver.exe')
elif os_type == "Linux":
    service = Service(executable_path='/usr/local/bin/chromedriver')

chrome_options.add_argument("--ignore-certificate-errors-spki-list")
browser = webdriver.Chrome(service=service, options=chrome_options)

user = 'username'
pwd =  'password'

def login():
    browser.get('https://redacted.com/staff/engineer/login')
    browser.find_element('name','email').send_keys(user)
    browser.find_element('name','password').send_keys(pwd)
    browser.find_element('class name','btn-login').click()

    time.sleep(2)
    print("\n============================== Login Success ==============================\n")


def customer_ticket_create(user_id,issue_category,issue_type,description,ticket_priority,ticket_status,ticket_cause):
    browser.get('https://redacted.com/create-ticket')

    try:
        browser.find_element("xpath",f"//*[@id='select2-ticket_for-container']").click()
        issue = browser.find_element("xpath","//*[@class='select2-search__field']")
        issue.send_keys("Customer")
        browser.find_element("xpath",f"//ul[@id='select2-ticket_for-results']/li[text()='Customer']").click()
        browser.find_element("xpath",'//*[@id="azTab1"]/div/div/div/div/div/div/div/div[3]/div/div/button').click()
        time.sleep(4)
        browser.find_element("xpath",f"//select[@name='issue_category']/option[text()='{issue_category}']").click()
        time.sleep(4)
        username_input = browser.find_element("xpath","//*[@id='existing_customer_container']/div/div[1]/div/input")
        username_input.send_keys(user_id)
        browser.find_element("xpath","//*[@id='existing_customer_container']/div/div[2]/button").click()
        time.sleep(7)
        browser.find_element("xpath",f"//*[@id='select2-issue_type-container']").click()
        time.sleep(3)
        issue = browser.find_element("xpath","//*[@class='select2-search__field']")
        issue.send_keys(issue_type)
        time.sleep(3)
        browser.find_element("xpath",f"//ul[@id='select2-issue_type-results']/li[text()='{issue_type}']").click()
        time.sleep(2)
        browser.find_element("xpath",f"//*[@id='select2-team_id-container']").click()
        time.sleep(2)
        issue = browser.find_element("xpath","//*[@class='select2-search__field']")
        issue.send_keys("TEAM_FOP KERALA")
        time.sleep(1)
        browser.find_element("xpath",f"//ul[@id='select2-team_id-results']/li[text()='TEAM_FOP KERALA']").click()
        username_input = browser.find_element("xpath","//*[@id='text_area']")
        username_input.send_keys(description)
        time.sleep(2)
        browser.find_element("xpath",f"//*[@name='ticket_status']/option[text()='{ticket_status}']").click()
        time.sleep(2)
        
        try:
            browser.find_element("xpath",f"//*[@id='select2-close_cause_id-container']").click()
            time.sleep(2)
            issue = browser.find_element("xpath","//*[@class='select2-search__field']")
            issue.send_keys(f"{ticket_cause}")
            time.sleep(1)
            browser.find_element("xpath",f"//ul[@id='select2-close_cause_id-results']/li[text()='{ticket_cause}']").click()
            time.sleep(2)
        except:
            print("Error in Ticket close cause")

        browser.find_element("xpath","//button[contains(@class, 'btn-primary') and text()='Submit']").click()
        
        time.sleep(3)

        button = browser.find_element('class name', 'btn.btn-success')
        ticket_link = button.get_attribute('href')

    except:
        ticket_link = 'not_created'

    return ticket_link

def ticket_scraper(ticket_link):
    browser.get(ticket_link)
    time.sleep(5)


     description = browser.find_element('xpath','/html/body/div[4]/div[1]/div/div[2]/div/div[2]/div/div[1]/div[2]/div/div[1]/div[2]/div/div[1]/div[2]/p').text
     uname = browser.find_element('xpath','/html/body/div[4]/div[1]/div/div[2]/div/div[2]/div/div[1]/div[2]/div/div[1]/div[1]/div[2]/div/div/p[1]/a').text
     created_date = browser.find_element('xpath','/html/body/div[4]/div[1]/div/div[2]/div/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/div/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr[23]/td[2]').text
     completed_date = browser.find_element('xpath','/html/body/div[4]/div[1]/div/div[2]/div/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/div/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr[25]/td[2]').text
     issue_type = browser.find_element('xpath','/html/body/div[4]/div[1]/div/div[2]/div/div[2]/div/div[2]/div[2]/div/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr[7]/td[2]').text
     lco = browser.find_element('class name','msg-list-div01').text
     lco_id = lco[:8]
    
    return ticket_id, created_date, completed_date, lco_id

        
def main(): 
    workbook = load_workbook(filename="input.xlsx")

    # Select a sheet name and active the sheet
    workbook.active = workbook['Sheet1']
    sheet = workbook['Sheet1']  # Replace 'Sheet1' with the actual sheet name
    
    sheet = workbook.active
    
    tablelist = []
    for i in range(sheet.min_row + 1, sheet.max_row + 1):
        user_id = sheet.cell(row=i, column=1).value
        issue_type = sheet.cell(row=i, column=2).value
        description = sheet.cell(row=i, column=3).value
        ticket_cause = sheet.cell(row=i, column=4).value
        issue_category = sheet.cell(row=i, column=5).value
        ticket_priority = sheet.cell(row=i, column=6).value
        ticket_status = sheet.cell(row=i, column=7).value
        

        ticket_link = customer_ticket_create(user_id,issue_category,issue_type,description,ticket_priority,ticket_status,ticket_cause)

        if ticket_link == 'not_created':
            ticket_id = ''
            created_date = ''
            completed_date = ''
            lco_id = ''
        else:
            ticket_id, created_date, completed_date, lco_id = ticket_scraper(ticket_link)

        data = {
                        "user_id": user_id,
                        "lco_id": lco_id,
                        "issue_type": issue_type,
                        "blank": "",
                        "description": description,
                        "t_no": ticket_id,
                        "completed_date": completed_date,
                        
                    }
        
        print(f"{user_id} - {ticket_id}")
        
        tablelist.append(data)
    
        df = pd.DataFrame(tablelist)
        df.to_excel('output.xlsx', header=True, index=False)

if __name__=="__main__":
    try :
        start = time.time()
        
        login()
        main()
        
        now = datetime.now()
        end = time.time()
        hours, rem = divmod(end-start, 3600)
        minutes, seconds = divmod(rem, 60)

        print(now.strftime('\n' + "=============== COMPLETED - %d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S")+  " {:0>2}:{:0>2}:{:05.2f}".format(int(hours),int(minutes),seconds)  + ' ===============' + '\n')

    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        print(f'\nKeyboard Interrupt.\n')
        sys.exit(130)

3. Customer count finder

This is another script for automating data scraping from a website using Selenium, capturing customer counts for different statuses (Active, Inactive, Suspended) based on input LCO IDs from a text file.

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
import time
import urllib.parse
import sys
import pandas as pd
import warnings
import platform

# Determine if the OS is Windows or Linux
os_type = platform.system()

warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')

username = 'username'
password = 'password'

if os_type == "Windows":
    service = Service(executable_path='C:/chromedriver/chromedriver.exe')
elif os_type == "Linux":
    service = Service(executable_path='/usr/local/bin/chromedriver')

chrome_options = Options()
chrome_options.add_argument("--log-level=3") 
chrome_options.add_argument("--ignore-certificate-errors-spki-list")
browser = webdriver.Chrome(service=service, options=chrome_options)

def login():
    browser.get('https://redacted.com')
    username_input = browser.find_element('name','txtUserName').send_keys(username)
    password_input = browser.find_element('name','txtPassword').send_keys(password)
    search_btn = browser.find_element('id','save')
    search_btn.click()

    time.sleep(2)

def customercount_finder(): 
    file1 = open('input_lcoids.txt', 'r')
    lines = file1.readlines()

    tablelist = []
    
    print("========================= STARTED =========================\n")
    
    for line in lines:
        lcoid = line.strip()

        browser.get('https://redacted.com/Accounts.aspx')

        browser.find_element("xpath","//select[@name='ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$ddl_list']/option[text()='Code']").click()

        time.sleep(3)

        browser.find_element('name','ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$txtserch').clear()
        username = browser.find_element('name','ctl00$ContentPlaceHolder1$txtserch')
        username.send_keys(lcoid)
        browser.find_element('id','ContentPlaceHolder1_btnserch').click()
        
        time.sleep(34)
        
        active_total = 0
        suspended_total = 0
        inactive_total = 0

        for i in range(10):
            try:
                user = browser.find_element('id',f'ContentPlaceHolder1_dl_total_lblnameT_{i}').text
                if user == 'Active':
                    active_total = browser.find_element('id',f'ContentPlaceHolder1_dl_total_lblTotalT_{i}').text
                    active_total = str(active_total)[2:]
                if user == 'Inactive':
                    inactive_total = browser.find_element('id',f'ContentPlaceHolder1_dl_total_lblTotalT_{i}').text
                    inactive_total = str(inactive_total)[2:]
                if user == 'Suspended':
                    suspended_total = browser.find_element('id',f'ContentPlaceHolder1_dl_total_lblTotalT_{i}').text
                    suspended_total = str(suspended_total)[2:]
                    
                list.append(i)
            except:
                pass

        data = {
                    "lco_id": lcoid,
                    "Active": active_total,
                    "Inactive": inactive_total,
                    "Suspended": suspended_total,
                }
        print(data)
        tablelist.append(data)

    timestr = time.strftime("%Y%m%d-%H%M%S")

    df = pd.DataFrame(tablelist)
    df.to_csv(f'lco/{timestr}.csv')
    
    print("\n======================== COMPLETED ======================== \n")
    
login()
customercount_finder()

4. Switch configuration auto backup

This Python script automates retrieving the current configuration from multiple network devices (e.g., switches or routers) using SSH and saving the configurations to local files. The script establishes SSH connections through a jump host to securely access each network device and fetch its configuration, then writes the retrieved configurations to a text file.

import time
import warnings
import paramiko
from datetime import datetime

warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')

j_user = 'JUMP_HOST_USERNAME'
j_pass =  'JUMP_HOST_PASSWORD'
j_host =  'JUMP_HOST_IP'

SW3 = {'ip': 'SWITCH_3_IP', 'username': 'user', 'password': 'pass123'}
SW2 = {'ip': 'SWITCH_2_IP', 'username': 'user', 'password': 'pass123'}
SW1 = {'ip': 'SWITCH_1_IP', 'username': 'user', 'password': 'pass123'}

all_devices = [SW1, SW2, SW3]

# Get current date in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format
current_date = datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d")

for device in all_devices:
    sw_user = device.get('username')
    sw_pass = device.get('password')
    sw_ip = device.get('ip')
    print(f"Connecting to {sw_ip}")

    try:
        # Connect to jump host
        vm = paramiko.SSHClient()
        vm.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
        vm.connect(j_host, username=j_user, password=j_pass)
        vm_transport = vm.get_transport()
        dest_addr = (sw_ip, 22)
        local_addr = (j_host, 22)
        vm_channel = vm_transport.open_channel("direct-tcpip", dest_addr, local_addr)

        # Connect to network device via the jump host
        jhost = paramiko.SSHClient()
        jhost.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
        jhost.connect(sw_ip, username=sw_user, password=sw_pass, sock=vm_channel)

        # Request an interactive shell session on this channel
        commands = jhost.invoke_shell()
        print(f"Connected to {sw_ip}")

        # Send the command to get the configuration
        commands.send("display current-configuration\n")

        # Wait for the command output to return
        time.sleep(10)  # Optionally replace this with a timeout check
        output = commands.recv(65535)
        output = output.decode("utf-8")

        # Create the output file name using current date and switch the IP with date
        filename = f"{sw_ip}_{current_date}.txt"

        # Write the output to a file with the new filename
        with open(filename, 'w') as f:
            print(output, file=f)

        # Close the connections
        jhost.close()
        vm.close()

    except Exception as e:
        print(f"Failed to connect or retrieve config from {sw_ip}: {e}")
        if 'vm' in locals():
            vm.close()
        if 'jhost' in locals():
            jhost.close()

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