Ecosyste.ms: Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

Awesome Lists | Featured Topics | Projects

https://github.com/marnanel/pinefs

Aaron Lav's Python NFS server - local copy
https://github.com/marnanel/pinefs

Last synced: about 2 months ago
JSON representation

Aaron Lav's Python NFS server - local copy

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        



Pinefs



Introduction


Pinefs is a user-space NFS server, written entirely in Python.  It

provides three sample filesystems: pyfs, which provides a view of the entire

Python namespace as a file system, allowing you to change variables in a

running Python program by writing to the corresponding file, or to use

Unix tools like find; memfs, a fairly trivial in-memory

filesystem; and tarfs, which populates memfs from a tar file specified

by the mount command (requires tarfile, included in Python 2.3, or

available separately).

The package also includes rpcgen.py, a Python

compiler from ONC RPC IDL to Python source.  Pinefs requires Python 2.2

or later, and has been developed on Linux and lightly tested on Win 98.

You can download it here.


Running the Pinefs pyfs Server


srv.py takes a single option, '-f', which defaults to 'py'

for the Python filesystem, but can be 'mem' for the memory

filesystem or 'tar' for the tar filesystem.  When the Python filesystem is

specified, the server

runs a Python interactive loop.


The mount server runs on port 5555, and the NFS server on 2049.

(Both register with the portmapper.)  On my Linux box, I use the following

command to mount the server for pyfs:


mount -t nfs -o noac 127.0.0.1:/ /mnt/nfs





Once the Python filesystem is mounted, you can try:


echo 1 > <mount point>/rpchelp/trace_rpc



to set the global trace_rpc in module rpchelp to 1, which causes

information about rpc calls to be printed.  You should see trace

information for the NFSPROC_WRITE call.  After you've

looked around the filesystem for a bit, you can turn off tracing by either:


echo 0 > <mount point&gt/rpchelp/trace_rpc





or typing into the Python interaction loop:


import rpchelp

rpchelp.trace_rpc = 0



See here for more information on the mapping

implemented by pyfs.  The mapping isn't perfect, but works well enough

to use emacs, or to untar, configure, and compile, e.g., my 

Dissociated Studio package.  (Note: if you want a production-quality monitoring/debugging

system, you should probably use something built for that purpose (like

manhole from Twisted), since you

could get more functionality, Pinefs doesn't address synchronization issues,

and pyfs filehandles aren't persistent across restarts).)



Running the Pinefs tarfs Server


This works much as above, except that instead of 127.0.0.1:/,

substitute for / the pathname to a tar file.  Now you can,

change directory to the mount point and browse, or, if it's a software

package, e.g., ./configure; make.



Running rpcgen.py


rpcgen.py takes an IDL filename as a parameter, and writes Python

code implementing that IDL on stdout.  The generated code imports

rpchelp and rpc from the Pinefs distribution, which thus must be

present at runtime.  rpcgen.py requires Dave Beazley's PLY package, licensed

under the LGPL.  Pinefs includes a precompiled rfc1094.py (generated

from rfc1094.idl), so you don't need PLY in order to run Pinefs.

See here for more information on rpcgen.

Notes


There are several other related programs, of which I was unaware,

partly because they weren't in 

PyPI orthe 

Vaults of Parnassus, partly because they weren't in the first

ten pages or so of google results (web and comp.lang.python.* search) when

I initially looked, and partly because I started from the Python 2.1

rather than 2.2 Demo/rpc directory.  (Consider this a plea for people

to use Vaults or post to comp.lang.python.announce.) I still think Pinefs

may be of interest, because it exposes the Python namespace via NFS, and

the included rpcgen handles nested structs and unions.



Here are the others:

    

  • 

    Pynfs, a NFSv4

    client, server, and test suite, and rpcgen
    • 

  • 

    Zodbex NFS, a NFSv[23] implementation with an in-memory filesystem
    • 

  • Wim Lewis's rpcgen.py

    • 



Pinefs is licensed under a MIT/X style license, except for rpc.py, which,

since my version is based on the Python 2.1 distribution, has the Python

license.

The name "Pinefs" is both a pun on PyNFS, the obvious name for

such a program, and allows me to make the quasi-obligatory 

allusion

:

"It's pining for the files!"

If you have any questions, you can reach me at 

Aaron Lav.

Back to Aaron's home page.