remote method invocation is cumbersome

• CORBA/RMI/SOAP model is cumbersome
• "infection" with object references throughout your program
• need to define interfaces, generate stubs/skeletons
• need to start server processes ahead of time
• complicates programming

what you want of ad-hoc networks

• ad hoc local protocols
• avoid defining and maintaining global interfaces
• deploy protocols purely from the client side
• zero installation required on server side

py.execnet model of ad-hoc networks

• Gateways can be setup via e.g. SSH logins or via Popen
• Gateway.remote_exec allows execution of arbitrary code
• means of communication between the two sides: Channels (with send & receive methods)
• example requirements: ssh login + python installed

py.execnet.SshGateway example

interactive:

gw = py.execnet.SshGateway('codespeak.net')

channel = gw.remote_exec("""
    for filename in channel:
        try:
            content = open(filename).read()
        except (OSError, IOError):
            content = None
        channel.send(content)
""")

next steps / references

• ad-hoc p2p networks

• chaining channels / passing channels around

• ensure it also works nicely on win32

• btw, py.execnet is part of the py lib

  http://codespeak.net/py/