PyInvoke

Title

PyInvoke is a transparent-rpc meant to ease control of remote machines, with easy processing of their output, and with maximal transparency.

Competition

PyInvoke inspired a competitor. This competitor took the idea even further and created a possibly better implementation:

Is PyInvoke for you?

Not necessarily. If you run over a slow or unreliable network, then PyInvoke will not work well. PyInvoke assumes a fast reliable network. Fortunatly this is the case in many local LANs of many potential users. PyInvoke is also NOT optimized for minimal network use and will typically not work as well as a specifically-created protocol for a specific purpose. If you currently control multiple machines with automated SSH/telnet scripts, or implementing specific network protocols or using any existing semi-transparent RPC-library, then it is very likely that PyInvoke can ease your job.

What can PyInvoke do? What can't it do?

PyInvoke can transparently import modules on remote machines, creating local proxy objects for them, allowing transparent access to the remote module objects. Those modules can then be used "natively", with the resulting objects also being remote, but transparently proxied into "feeling" local. A local proxy is said to be a "network reference" to an object on the server-side. PyInvoke does not allow "network references" from the server to the client. Thus, all objects the client gives the server functions as arguments are copied. This means, for example, that you cannot hand a Window object to the server and let it draw on the window. It will simply try to draw on a copy of the Window instance. It works just fine the other way around though: You can get a Window object as a return value of a function on the server, and invoke its methods remotely.

Why yet another transparent RPC?

Because no existing transparent RPC can be used with the minimal fuss that PyInvoke can. Because with PyInvoke, the server is a small component that needs not be touched. This allows all modifications to occur only in the client side, which is especially useful when running servers on multiple machines of multiple platforms. Because PyInvoke takes transparency to a new level, abstracting even more the presense of the network.

Download

PyInvoke can be downloaded here.
Eyal Lotem
Last modified: Sat Aug 19 16:11:59 IDT 2006