Create a script to automate the fsimage export

I'm working on automation for the steps required to export the fsimage and process it for input into hdfs-du. I'm currently doing this as a shell script designed to run from the secondary name node.

I'm already wishing this was in a language like ruby or python. I'm more familiar with ruby so that is my first inclination, but the project already has a dependency on python, so that might make sense as well.