Introduction:

In this blog post, we will explore how to automate server updates on AWS instances using Paramiko, a Python library for SSH. Additionally, we will demonstrate the process of installing Java 17 on a remote machine to keep your server environment up to date. Let's dive in!

Prerequisites:

1. Python and Paramiko library installed on your local machine.

2. Access to an AWS instance with SSH connectivity.

Step 1: Setting up the SSH connection To establish an SSH connection to the AWS instance, you need the following details:

• Public IP address or hostname of the AWS instance.

• SSH private key (.pem file) associated with the AWS instance.

First, import the necessary libraries:

import paramiko

Next, create an SSH client and configure it with the required details:

ssh = paramiko.SSHClient()
ssh.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
private_key = paramiko.RSAKey.from_private_key_file('/path/to/private_key.pem')

Step 2: Connecting to the AWS instance To establish the SSH connection, use the connect() method and provide the AWS instance's IP address or hostname, username, and private key:

ssh.connect('your-instance-ip-or-hostname', username='ec2-user', key_filename=private_key)

Step 3: Updating the server Once connected, you can run commands on the remote machine. Let's start by updating the server using the sudo yum update command:

stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command('sudo yum update -y')

Step 4: Installing Java 17 To install Java 17 on the remote machine, you can execute the necessary commands via SSH. Here's an example of installing Java 17 using yum package manager:

stdin, stdout, stderr = ssh.exec_command('sudo yum install -y java-17-openjdk')

Step 5: Handling output To handle the output of the executed commands, you can retrieve the stdout and stderr streams. For example, to print the output to the console:

print(stdout.read().decode())
print(stderr.read().decode())

Step 6: Closing the SSH connection Remember to close the SSH connection once you're done:

ssh.close()

Conclusion:

In this blog post, we explored how to automate server updates on AWS instances using Paramiko. We also demonstrated the process of installing Java 17 on a remote machine. By leveraging Paramiko's SSH capabilities, you can easily manage and update your AWS instances programmatically, saving time and effort.