system: consistent indenting (4 spaces)
system: fix line length

120 chars max
system: use raw strings in regular expressions
system: one statement per line
system: disable 'W0613: unused argument' warning

The module methods are in fact methods of SpacewalkShell class.
system: fix / remove unused variables
system: disable warning about (unused) wildcard import
system: note about unused argument pylint setting
utils: parse_arguments() to return consistently in case of an exception
system: don't redefine module / variable name from outer scope
system: don't check function names
system: use xmlrpclib.Fault rather than general Exception
system: use xmlrpclib.Fault rather than bare except