OCI Forgotten Resource Detective: Sniff Out Orphaned OCI Resources Like a FinOps Bloodhound

Overview

The OCI Forgotten Resource Detective is a Python script that sniffs out those dusty, unused resources lurking in your OCI kitchen and quietly padding your bill. It’s your FinOps bloodhound—pointing out the wasteful ingredients you can toss to slim down costs and keep your cloud pantry lean.

Forget just scratching the surface—this script dives deep into your OCI pantry to sniff out the real leftovers: orphaned block volumes, floating public IPs, empty NSGs, and more. It then whips up both a detailed CSV “shopping list” and a colorful HTML report (complete with cost estimates) so you know exactly which waste to toss first.

Key Features

How It Works

This FinOps bloodhound uses the OCI Python SDK to patrol your tenancy, inspecting resources and their settings to sniff out potential waste. Here’s how the recipe unfolds:

1. Authentication: Connects to OCI using your configured profile credentials
2. Compartment Discovery: Identifies all active compartments in your tenancy, including the root compartment
3. Resource Scanning: For each compartment, scans for various resource types (block volumes, public IPs, NSGs, load balancers, compute instances)
4. Waste Analysis: Applies specific criteria to identify potentially wasteful resources:
   • Block volumes with no attachments
   • Reserved public IPs not attached to any VNIC
   • Network security groups with no VNICs
   • Load balancers with no backends
   • Compute instances with shapes matching the old-generation pattern
   • Resources with no tags
   • Resources with names matching suspicious patterns
5. Cost Estimation: Calculates approximate monthly cost impact for identified resources
6. Reporting: Generates both CSV and HTML reports with the findings

# Find any attachments for this volume
attachments = compute_client.list_volume_attachments(
 compartment_id=comp_id,
 volume_id=vol.id
).data

# If no attachments found → it's orphaned
if len(attachments) == 0:
 # Add to findings

def has_no_tags(resource):
 ff = getattr(resource,"freeform_tags", None)
 df = getattr(resource,"defined_tags", None)
 if (not ff or len(ff) == 0) and (not df or len(df) == 0):
 return True
 return False

Prerequisites

Before firing up the OCI Forgotten Resource Detective, make sure your kitchen is stocked with:

• Python 3.6 or higher - The script is compatible with Python 3.6+
• OCI Python SDK - The script requires the OCI Python SDK to interact with Oracle Cloud
• OCI CLI Configuration - A properly configured OCI CLI profile with the necessary permissions
• Required Permissions - The user or service principal used must have read access to the resources being scanned

Installation

Installing this detective is as easy as preheating the oven—just grab the script, install dependencies, and you’re ready to cook.

1. Download the script - Save the oci_forgotten_resources.py file to your preferred location
2. Make it executable (Linux/macOS) - Run chmod +x oci_forgotten_resources.py
3. Install dependencies - Ensure the OCI Python SDK is installed

Usage

Basic Usage

Want the no-frills option? Just run the script as-is (no flags needed), and it will:

• Use your DEFAULT OCI CLI profile
• Flag VM.Standard1.* shapes as old-generation
• Flag resources with names containing test, temp, demo, old, backup, or poc
• Save the CSV report as"forgotten_resources_report.csv" in the current directory
• Save the HTML report as"forgotten_resources_report.html" in the current directory

Advanced Usage

The script supports several parameters for more customized analysis:

Understanding the Report

This detective serves up results three ways—console output, a CloudCostChefs-styled HTML report, and a handy CSV “shopping list.

Console Output

The console output provides immediate insights and includes:

• Compartment Scanning Progress - Shows which compartments are being scanned
• Summary Statistics - Total number of issues found
• Report Locations - Paths to the generated CSV and HTML reports

Fetching all active compartments under tenancy ocid1.tenancy.oc1..example …
 Found 12 compartments (including root).

Scanning compartment ocid1.compartment.oc1..example1 …
Scanning compartment ocid1.compartment.oc1..example2 …
Scanning compartment ocid1.compartment.oc1..example3 …
...

Found 24 forgotten/suspicious resources in total.
CSV report saved to: forgotten_resources_report.csv
HTML report saved to: forgotten_resources_report.html

HTML Report

The HTML report dishes out a beautiful, easy-to-share feast of your findings—perfect for serving to the whole FinOps team.

CSV Report

The CSV report offers a full, spreadsheet-ready spread of your findings—perfect for spreadsheets or data analysis tools hungry for details:

Customization Options

Feel free to tweak the detective’s recipe—adjust the shape regex or suspicious-name regex so it fits your OCI kitchen’s unique flavor:

# Default pattern (flags VM.Standard1.* shapes)
--old-shape-pattern"VM\.Standard1.*"

# More aggressive pattern (flags VM.Standard1.*, VM.Standard2.*, and VM.Standard.E2.*)
--old-shape-pattern"VM\.(Standard1|Standard2|Standard\.E2).*"

# Include AMD shapes
--old-shape-pattern"VM\.(Standard1|Standard\.E2|Standard\.A1).*"

# Find the HTML template section (starts with html_content = f"""<!DOCTYPE html>)
# Modify the CSS styles or HTML structure as needed
# For example, to change the background color:

body { 
 font-family: 'Segoe UI', Tahoma, Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif; 
 background: #f0f0f0; /* Changed color */
 margin: 20px; 
}

# Add to the scan_compartment function
# Check for long-stopped instances
for inst in instances:
 if inst.lifecycle_state =="STOPPED":
 # Get the instance's lifecycle history
 history = compute_client.list_instance_actions(
 instance_id=inst.id
 ).data
 
 # Look for the most recent stop action
 stop_actions = [a for a in history if a.action =="STOP"]
 if stop_actions and len(stop_actions) > 0:
 latest_stop = max(stop_actions, key=lambda x: x.time_created)
 stop_time = latest_stop.time_created
 
 # Calculate days since stopped
 days_stopped = (datetime.now(timezone.utc) - stop_time).days
 
 if days_stopped > 30: # Stopped for more than 30 days
 findings.append({
"ResourceName": inst.display_name,
"ResourceType":"ComputeInstance",
"CompartmentId": comp_id,
"Issue": f"Stopped for {days_stopped} days",
"RiskLevel":"Medium",
"CostEstimate":"Storage only",
"AdditionalInfo": f"Shape: {inst.shape}, Stopped since: {stop_time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')}",
"FreeformTags": inst.freeform_tags or {},
"DefinedTags": inst.defined_tags or {},
 })

Automation

For regular monitoring of forgotten resources, you can automate the OCI Forgotten Resource Detective using various methods:

# Edit crontab
crontab -e

# Add a line to run weekly on Sunday at 1 AM
0 1 * * 0 /path/to/python /path/to/oci_forgotten_resources.py --output-csv"/reports/oci_waste_$(date +\%Y-\%m-\%d).csv" --output-html"/reports/oci_waste_$(date +\%Y-\%m-\%d).html"

# Add this at the end of the main function
import smtplib
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.application import MIMEApplication

def send_email_report(csv_path, html_path, recipients):
 msg = MIMEMultipart()
 msg['Subject'] = f'OCI Forgotten Resource Report - {datetime.now().strftime("%Y-%m-%d")}'
 msg['From'] = 'oci-detective@yourcompany.com'
 msg['To'] = ', '.join(recipients)
 
 # Add body
 body = f"The OCI Forgotten Resource Detective found {len(all_findings)} issues. See attached reports."
 msg.attach(MIMEText(body, 'plain'))
 
 # Attach CSV
 with open(csv_path, 'rb') as file:
 attachment = MIMEApplication(file.read(), Name=os.path.basename(csv_path))
 attachment['Content-Disposition'] = f'attachment; filename="{os.path.basename(csv_path)}"'
 msg.attach(attachment)
 
 # Attach HTML
 with open(html_path, 'rb') as file:
 attachment = MIMEApplication(file.read(), Name=os.path.basename(html_path))
 attachment['Content-Disposition'] = f'attachment; filename="{os.path.basename(html_path)}"'
 msg.attach(attachment)
 
 # Send email
 smtp = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.yourcompany.com')
 smtp.send_message(msg)
 smtp.close()
 
 print(f"Email report sent to {', '.join(recipients)}")

# Call the function if findings exist
if all_findings:
 send_email_report(
 args.output_csv,
 args.output_html,
 ['cloud-team@yourcompany.com', 'finance@yourcompany.com']
 )

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues with the OCI Forgotten Resource Detective, here are some common problems and solutions:

Next Steps

After identifying forgotten resources with this tool, consider these next steps to optimize your OCI costs: