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Getting Started with Digital Forensics in Python
Jigisha Sata
2 years ago
Table of Contents
- Why Python is one of the best for Digital Forensics?
- How to Install Python?
1. Python Installation on Unix and Linux
2. Python Installation on Windows
3. Python Installation on Macintosh
- How to Set PATH for Python manually?
1. Path setting at Unix/Linux
2. Path Setting at Windows
- Running Python
1: With the Interactive Interpreter
2: With the Script from the Command-line
3: Integrated Development Environment
In this article, we will try to see how
to use python programming for digital forensics investigation.
Let’s first understand
Why Python is one of the best for Digital Forensics?
We all know how much python
programming language is popular. Its popularity is not only among the
professional programmer but also among the people who are new to programming
and just started their career.
Python is used for
cybersecurity, penetration as well as digital forensic investigations. When we
use Python as a tool for digital forensics, we don’t need other third-party
software for completing the task as python provides an end to end solution.
Python programming provides some of the unique features that
make it a good choice for digital forensics. Some of them as listed below-
- Syntax Simplicity – Python is considered one of the easiest programming languages in terms of its syntax as compared to other languages, that makes it easier for one to learn and also use for digital forensics.
- Comprehensive inbuilt modules − Python provides us with a comprehensive inbuilt module which is an excellent aid. This module helps us to perform a complete digital forensic investigation.
- Help and Support – Python is an open-source programming language with a huge user’s community of software developers worldwide that provide excellent support.
- Cross-platform Compatible − Python is a cross-platform compatible language which can run efficiently on various platforms such as UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh.
- GUI Programming − Python supports for GUI (Graphical user interfaces) programming which helps developers to work with an easy interface.
- Integration with other programming languages – It can easily be integrated with different programming languages such as C, C++, JAVA etc.
How to install Python?
One of the best advantages of
python is that its distribution is available for different platforms such as
Windows, UNIX, Linux and Mac. We need only to download the binary code as per
our platform and install it.
We can also compile it manually
if we have the source code and C compiler available with us.
Now let’s see the installation
of Python on various platforms−
1. Python Installation on Unix and Linux
These
are the steps shown below to install Python on Unix/Linux machine
- Step 1 − Open this URL https://www.python.org/downloads/
- Step 2 − Download the source code available for Unix/Linux which will be in zipped format.
- Step 3 − Extract the zipped files.
- Step 4 − If you wish to customize a few options according to yourself, you can edit the Modules/Setup file.
- Step 5 – To complete the installation run the below-mentioned command
run ./configure script
make
make installOnce
the above step is completed, Python will be installed at its standard location /usr/local/bin
and its libraries will be installed at /usr/local/lib/pythonXX where XX
represents the version of Python installed.
2. Python Installation on Windows
Below mentioned are
the simple steps to install Python on any Windows machine.
- Step 1 – Go to this URL https://www.python.org/downloads/
- Step 2 − Download the Windows installer python-XYZ.msi file, where XYZ is the version you want to install.
- Step 3 – After downloading run that MSI file after saving the installer file to your local computer.
- Step 4 – Now run the downloaded file which will bring up the Python installation wizard.
3. Python Installation on Macintosh
Python 3 is installed on Mac OS
X using a package installer named Homebrew.
To install Homebrew, if you
don’t have it in your mac machine run the below-mentioned command
$ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Now
in case you need to update the package manager, then it can be done as follows-
$ brew update
Now, Run the below
mentioned command to install Python3 on your Mac OS system −
$ brew install python3
How to Set PATH for Python manually?
Now let’s suppose you wants to
set your own path for Python installation. Note different platforms such as UNIX,
WINDOWS, or MAC have their own specific process and all differ from one
another.
Let’s try to see one by one
separately
1. Path setting at Unix/Linux
You can follow the
below mentioned points to set the path on Unix/Linux −
- If using csh shell - Type setenv PATH "$PATH:/usr/local/bin/python" and then press Enter.
- If using bash shell (Linux) − Type export ATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin/python" and then press Enter.
- If using sh or ksh shell - Type PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin/python" and then press Enter.
2. Path Setting at Windows
To set the path on windows
machine type the below-mentioned code in the command prompt and then press Enter.
setx path "%path%;c:\directoryPath"It will install the python on
the mentioned path.
Running Python
There
are three method to start your Python interpreter as mentioned below –
Method 1: With the Interactive Interpreter
Python can be easily be used by any
system which provides a command-line interpreter or shell. For example, Unix,
DOS etc.
A system that provides a command-line interpreter or shell can easily be used for
starting Python. For example, Unix, DOS, etc.
To
use interactive interpreter follows the below steps:
Step 1 − Write python at the command
line and press enter.
Step 2 − Using the commands shown
below. You can start coding
$python # Unix/Linux
or
python% # Unix/Linux
or
C:> python # Windows/DOSMethod 2: With the Script from the Command-line
Python script can also be
executed at command line by invoking the interpreter on our application.
To
do this use the below commands−
$python script.py # Unix/Linux
or
python% script.py # Unix/Linux
or
C: >python script.py # Windows/DOSMethod 3: Integrated Development Environment
Python can also be run from GUI
if a system has a GUI application that supports Python.
Below
are shown some of the IDE for different platforms-
- Windows IDE – In Windows, it has PythonWin, which is the first Windows interface for Python comes with GUI.
- Unix IDE − UNIX has IDLE IDE for Python.
- Macintosh IDE − Macintosh has IDLE IDE which is available on the main website, which you can download as either MacBinary or BinHex'd files.
I hope after you enjoyed reading this article and finally,
you came to know about
Getting Started with Digital Forensics in Python
For more such blogs/courses on data science, machine
learning, artificial intelligence and emerging new technologies do visit us at InsideAIML.
Thanks for reading…
Happy Learning…