Draft for a Python script that checks an Adaptec HW RAID controller through the arcconf utility

raidcheck.py

#!/usr/bin/python
'''
  Check status of an Adaptec HW RAID controller and sends an email
  if something looks bad.

  Intended for being used as cron job, so no screen output is generated.
'''

# Configuration section
notify_email="root"

# Code starts here
from subprocess import check_output
import smtplib
from email.message import Message

def find_problem(cmdline, key, expected):
	''' Check if the key has the expected value, otherwise return the different one. '''
	output=check_output(cmdline, shell=True).splitlines()
	data=[line.split(':',1) for line in output if ' : ' in line]
	data={k.strip():v.strip() for (k,v) in data}
	if data[key] != expected:
		msg=Message()
		msg.set_payload('%s == %s, not "%s"'%(key, data[key], expected))
		msg['Subject'] = '[RAID Warning] Bad news from arcconf' 
		msg['From'] = notify_email
		msg['To'] = notify_email
		s = smtplib.SMTP('localhost')
		s.sendmail(notify_email, notify_email, msg.as_string())
		s.quit()
		return data[key]
	else:
		return None

find_problem('arcconf GETCONFIG 1 AD', 'Controller Status', 'Optimal')
find_problem('arcconf GETCONFIG 1 LD', 'Status of Logical Device', 'Optimal')