Before you start reading this book, you should know the basics of Python programming, such as the basic syntax, variable types, tuple data type, list dictionary, functions, strings, and methods. Two versions, 3.7.2 and 2.7.15, are available at python.org/downloads/. In this book we'll work with version 3.7 for code examples and package installing.

Examples and source code for this chapter are available in the GitHub repository: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Mastering-Python-Scripting-for-System-Administrators-.