Splitbrain Python

I was working together with a colleague on a complex distributed test-automation solution on top of RPyC, and we looked for a way to make our existing codebase RPyC-friendly (without altering it). The design of the test framework called for a master machine and several slave machines, such that tests actually run on the master, but "interface with reality" on the slaves. Basically, we wanted the test to use the master's CPU (and development environment), but perform all IO-related actions on its slaves.

To illustrate this, suppose we have machine A, which runs our test, and machine B, which is connected to the necessary hardware and testing equipment. The test was initially designed to run directly on machine B, so it imports modules like os and subprocess and uses them to manipulate the machine. We now want the test to run on machine A - but keep using machine B's os and subprocess modules, so whenever we spawn child processes or open device files, it would actually take place on machine B. This allows us to reboot machine B as a part of a test, or even use your-favorite-IDE-here to run test and debug it locally.

If it were only tests, RPyC already enables us to do that: we'd use conn.modules.os and conn.modules.subprocess instead of their local counterparts. However, the test themselves rely on a several libraries that expect to run locally, and provide services for the test. For instance, these libraries manipulate the operating system's storage stack, to map and mount volumes. Changing these libraries to run over RPyC is not an option (tens of thousands of LoC that handle low-level OS-specific tools)...

Enter Splitbrain

So this is the background that had given birth to splitbrain: instead of changing our codebase to use RPyC -- why not use RPyC to monkey-patch our codebase? When splitbrain is enabled (usually within a with block), all of Python's interfaces with the operating system ( os , platform , subprocess , ...) are patched to go through RPyC, so that any code that runs at this point "believes" it actually runs directly on the remote machine. It's easier than it seems, actually.

First, we import RPyC and install splitbrain :

>>> import rpyc >>> from rpyc.utils.splitbrain import patch , Splitbrain >>> >>> # monkey-patch all OS-APIs >>> patch ()

Next, just to prove a point, we're running on a Linux box:

>>> import platform >>> platform . platform () 'Linux-2.6.38-15-generic-i686-with-Ubuntu-11.04-natty' >>> import sys >>> sys . platform 'linux2'

Let's now connect to a remote machine over RPyC and enter a splitbrain context:

>>> winmachine = Splitbrain ( rpyc . classic . connect ( "my.windows.box" )) >>> with winmachine : ... print platform . platform () ... print sys . platform ... Windows-XP-5.1.2600-SP3 win32

When we're out of the splitbrain context, everything is back to normal again:

>>> sys . platform 'linux2' >>> >>> import win32file Traceback (most recent call last): ... ImportError : No module named win32file

And inside a splitbrain context, when a module is not found locally it's fetched from the remote machine!

>>> with winmachine : ... import win32file ... print win32file . CreateFile ... <built-in function CreateFile> >>> >>> win32file . CreateFile Traceback (most recent call last): ... AttributeError : Nonexistent module win32file (CreateFile)

Note: splitbrain is still highly experimental and probably has issues with multiple threads. I hope to stabilize it and incorporate it into the next release of RPyC (3.3). In the meanwhile, you can experiment with it on RPyC's master branch and report bugs on github. It's likely it will never be perfect, but heck, it's cool!