What is the best way to map windows drives using P

Question

What is the best way to map a network share to a windows drive using Python? This share also requires a username and password.

Answer 1

Assuming that you import necessary libraries, This was a part of an RPC server where the client requested the server to map a drive locally...

#Small function to check the availability of network resource.
def isAvailable(path):
    winCMD = 'IF EXIST ' + path + ' echo YES'
    cmdOutPut = subprocess.Popen(winCMD, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()
    return string.find(str(cmdOutPut), 'YES',)

#Small function to check if the mention location is a directory
def isDirectory(path):
    winCMD = 'dir ' + path + ' | FIND ".."'
    cmdOutPut = subprocess.Popen(winCMD, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()
    return string.find(str(cmdOutPut), 'DIR',)

================Check the white spaces from here, these were a part of a function============

def mapNetworkDrive(self, drive, networkPath, user, password):

    #Check for drive availability
    if isAvailable(drive) > -1:
        #Drive letter is already in use
        return -1

    #Check for network resource availability
    if isAvailable(networkPath) == -1:
        print "Path not accessible: ", networkPath
        #Network path is not reachable
        return -1

    #Prepare 'NET USE' commands
    winCMD1 = 'NET USE ' + drive + ' ' + networkPath
    winCMD2 = winCMD1 + ' ' + password + ' /User' + user

    print "winCMD1 = ", winCMD1
    print "winCMD2 = ", winCMD2
    #Execute 'NET USE' command with authentication
    winCMD = winCMD2
    cmdOutPut = subprocess.Popen(winCMD, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()
    print "Executed: ", winCMD
    if string.find(str(cmdOutPut), 'successfully',) == -1:
        print winCMD, " FAILED"
        winCMD = winCMD1
        #Execute 'NET USE' command without authentication, incase session already open
        cmdOutPut = subprocess.Popen(winCMD, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()
        print "Executed: ", winCMD
        if string.find(str(cmdOutPut), 'successfully',) == -1:
            print winCMD, " FAILED"
            return -1
        #Mapped on second try
        return 1
    #Mapped with first try
    return 1

def unmapNetworkDrive(self, drive):

    #Check if the drive is in use
    if isAvailable(drive) == -1:
        #Drive is not in use
        return -1

    #Prepare 'NET USE' command
    winCMD = 'net use ' + drive + ' /DELETE'
    cmdOutPut = subprocess.Popen(winCMD, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True).communicate()
    if string.find(str(cmdOutPut), 'successfully',) == -1:
        #Could not UN-MAP, this might be a physical drive
        return -1
    #UN-MAP successful
    return 1

Answer 2

I don't have a server to test with here at home, but maybe you could simply use the standard library's subprocess module to execute the appropriate NET USE command?

Looking at NET HELP USE from a windows command prompt, looks like you should be able to enter both the password and user id in the net use command to map the drive.

A quick test in the interpreter of a bare net use command w/o the mapping stuff:

>>> import subprocess
>>> subprocess.check_call(['net', 'use'])
New connections will be remembered.

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