[Python-modules-team] Bug#679607: python-pywbem and sblim-wbemcli: error when trying to install together

[Ferenc Wagner]

Bernd Zeimetz <bernd at bzed.de> writes:

> Could you summarize the advantages/disadvantages of sblim-wbemcli over
> the python version? Is there a common interface?

Hi,

I can't say much about the Python version, because it refuses to work
with our storage:

$ wbemcli.distrib our.storage.niif.hu -n /root/hpq --no-ssl
Connected to http://our.storage.niif.hu
>>> ei('DHS_Fan')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/bin/wbemcli.distrib", line 164, in EnumerateInstances
    IncludeClassOrigin = IncludeClassOrigin)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/pywbem/cim_operations.py", line 404, in EnumerateInstances
    **params)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/pywbem/cim_operations.py", line 186, in imethodcall
    tt = parse_cim(dom_to_tupletree(reply_dom))
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/pywbem/tupleparse.py", line 289, in parse_cim
    attrs(tt)[CIMVERSION])
NameError: global name 'CIMVERSION' is not defined

My Python is weak, but it seems to boil down to pywbem expecting version
2.0.  Here it gets <CIM CIMVERSION="2.10" DTDVERSION="2.1.1"> instead.

The equivalent SBLIM command is

$ wbemcli ei 'http://our.storage.niif.hu:5988/root/hpq:DHS_Fan'

and it gives back the requested information.  (This storage sports a
nonstandard SMI-S implementation, but I doubt that would be responsible
for the above.)

As you can see, the interface is similar as far as the command names are
concerned, but also very different: the Python version is an interactive
wrapper exposing the Python interpreter, while sblim-wbemcli is a one
shot utility.

Also, as pywbem is a library, wbemcli.py looks more like a testing tool,
sample usage or proof of concept to me than something meant for
production use.  When I was looking for a WBEM interface (mostly for
monitoring purposes) I was very glad to find a library, which I was
expecting to use in our custom monitoring plugins instead of parsing the
output of some standalone utility.  Unfortunately, it didn't work out.
-- 
Cheers,
Feri.