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ServerCheck: Building a Python CLI with Click

We frequently have to check whether one of our servers has access to other servers on our internal network. To make this a little easier for ourselves, we've decided to use Python to write a CLI that can either take a JSON file with servers and ports to check or a list of host/port combinations to make requests to. In this hands-on lab, we're going to outline our CLI using the [click](https://click.palletsprojects.com/en/7.x/) library.

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Lab platform
Lab Info
Level
Intermediate
Last updated
Jul 24, 2025
Duration
45m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Set Up a Project and Virtualenv Using Pipenv

    To set up our project, we're going to create a new directory with an internal directory of the same name (servercheck) to hold our Python package:

    $ mkdir -p servercheck/servercheck
    $ cd servercheck
    

    We also need to add an __init__.py to the internal servercheck directory to mark it as a package:

    $ touch servercheck/__init__.py
    

    Next, let's make sure that pipenv is installed and then use it to create our virtualenv and install click:

    $ pip3.7 install --user -U pipenv
    ...
    $ pipenv --python python3.7 install click
    ...
    

    Once the virtualenv is created, we need to activate it while working on this project:

    $ pipenv shell
    (servercheck) $
    
  2. Challenge

    Define the CLI Function

    With click installed, we're ready to start creating the command line function. Let's put this in a cli module within the servercheck package:

    servercheck/cli.py

    import click
    
    @click.command()
    def cli():
        pass
    
    if __name__ == "__main__":
        cli()
    

    Now we can run our cli by passing this file to the Python interpreter:

    (servercheck) $ python servercheck/cli.py --help
    Usage: cli.py [OPTIONS]
    
    Options:
      --help  Show this message and exit
    

    Our final result requires us to handle two different types of options but not positional arguments. To add these, we'll use the @click.option decorator. Let's also handle the case when both of the options are empty.

    servercheck/cli.py

    import click
    
    @click.command()
    @click.option("--filename", "-f", default=None)
    @click.option("--server", "-s", default=None, multiple=True)
    def cli(filename, server):
        if not filename and not server:
            raise click.UsageError("must provide a JSON file or servers")
    
    if __name__ == "__main__":
        cli()
    

    Since we're running the file without any arguments, we should see an expected error:

    (servercheck) $ python servercheck/cli.py
    Usage: cli.py [OPTIONS]
    
    Error: must provide a JSON file or servers
    

    Next, we'll create a set to hold on to all of the server/IP combinations, and then we'll add anything from the JSON file if given and also the values passed using the --server or -s flags.

    servercheck/cli.py

    import click
    import json
    import sys
    
    @click.command()
    @click.option("--filename", "-f", default=None)
    @click.option("--server", "-s", default=None, multiple=True)
    def cli(filename, server):
        if not filename and not server:
            raise click.UsageError("must provide a JSON file or servers")
    
        # Create a set to prevent duplicate server/port combinations
        servers = set()
    
        # If --filename or -f option is used then attempt to read
        # the file and add all values to the `servers` set.
        if filename:
            try:
                with open(filename) as f:
                    json_servers = json.load(f)
                    for s in json_servers:
                        servers.add(s)
            except:
                print("Error: Unable to open or read JSON file")
                sys.exit(1)
    
        # If --server or -s option are used then add those values
        # to the set.
        if server:
            for s in server:
                servers.add(s)
    
        print(servers)
    
    if __name__ == "__main__":
        cli()
    

    To test this, let's create an example JSON file to parse and use it in combination with the --server option.

    example.json

    [
        "JSONIP:PORT",
        "JSONIP:PORT",
        "JSONIP2:PORT2"
    ]
    

    Notice that we put a duplicate in the JSON file to make sure that it isn't listed twice in our output.

    Now let's test our tool:

    $ python servercheck/cli.py -s "TEST:4000" --server "Other:3000" -f example.json
    {'JSONIP2:PORT2', 'TEST:4000', 'JSONIP:PORT', 'Other:3000'}
    
  3. Challenge

    Create `setup.py` with `console_scripts` for `servercheck`

    We know that we're able to take in the user's information so we should create our setup.py so that we can generate a console script when installing our package. We're going to use the starter setup.py that Kennith Reitz maintains so that we don't have to

    (servercheck) $ curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kennethreitz/setup.py/master/setup.py
    

    Next, let's edit this file to add click as a dependency in the REQUIRED list and create our console_script. We're also going to remove the UploadCommand:

    setup.py

    #!/usr/bin/env python
    # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
    
    import io
    import os
    import sys
    from shutil import rmtree
    
    from setuptools import find_packages, setup, Command
    
    # Package meta-data.
    NAME = "servercheck"
    DESCRIPTION = (
        "CLI to ensure that HTTP requests can be made to various server/port combinations"
    )
    URL = "https://github.com/me/myproject"
    EMAIL = "[email protected]"
    AUTHOR = "Awesome Soul"
    REQUIRES_PYTHON = ">=3.7.0"
    VERSION = "0.1.0"
    
    # What packages are required for this module to be executed?
    REQUIRED = ["click"]
    
    # What packages are optional?
    EXTRAS = {
        # 'fancy feature': ['django'],
    }
    
    # The rest you shouldn't have to touch too much :)
    # ------------------------------------------------
    # Except, perhaps the License and Trove Classifiers!
    # If you do change the License, remember to change the Trove Classifier for that!
    
    here = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
    
    # Import the README and use it as the long-description.
    # Note: this will only work if 'README.md' is present in your MANIFEST.in file!
    try:
        with io.open(os.path.join(here, "README.md"), encoding="utf-8") as f:
            long_description = "\n" + f.read()
    except FileNotFoundError:
        long_description = DESCRIPTION
    
    # Load the package's __version__.py module as a dictionary.
    about = {}
    if not VERSION:
        project_slug = NAME.lower().replace("-", "_").replace(" ", "_")
        with open(os.path.join(here, project_slug, "__version__.py")) as f:
            exec(f.read(), about)
    else:
        about["__version__"] = VERSION
    
    # Where the magic happens:
    setup(
        name=NAME,
        version=about["__version__"],
        description=DESCRIPTION,
        long_description=long_description,
        long_description_content_type="text/markdown",
        author=AUTHOR,
        author_email=EMAIL,
        python_requires=REQUIRES_PYTHON,
        url=URL,
        packages=find_packages(exclude=["tests", "*.tests", "*.tests.*", "tests.*"]),
        # If your package is a single module, use this instead of 'packages':
        # py_modules=['mypackage'],
        entry_points={"console_scripts": ["servercheck=servercheck.cli:cli"]},
        install_requires=REQUIRED,
        extras_require=EXTRAS,
        include_package_data=True,
        license="MIT",
        classifiers=[
            # Trove classifiers
            # Full list: https://pypi.python.org/pypi?%3Aaction=list_classifiers
            "License :: OSI Approved :: MIT License",
            "Programming Language :: Python",
            "Programming Language :: Python :: 3",
            "Programming Language :: Python :: 3.7",
            "Programming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: CPython",
            "Programming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: PyPy",
        ],
    )
    

    Let's install our tool to be editable using pip and then use it by name:

    (servercheck) $ pip install -e .
    ...
    (servercheck) $ servercheck -s "SERVER:1000" -s "SERVER:2000"
    {'SERVER:1000', 'SERVER:2000'}
    

    We've successfully implemented the foundational UI for our CLI.

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