API Reference

Environment

All of the following are environment variables that can be set to configure net. Each variable is prefixed with “NET_{value}”.

Network Thread Limit

net.THREAD_LIMIT

Default: 5

For larger networks, you may want to increase the thread count. By default, this is set to 5. When scanning the network for peers, the total number of hosts is load balanced between the thread count you provide in this variable.

Port Configuration

net.PORT_START

Default: 3010

This is the starting port that the peers will attempt to bind to.

net.PORT_RANGE

Default: 5

This is the range of ports that you want the port to try to bind to. If the default is 3010, net will scan 3010 - 3015 for a port.

Peer Configuration

net.GROUP

Default: None

You can group your peers together by defining the group it belongs to. This helps Peers find compatible peers or collections.

net.IS_HUB

Default: False

If you have a single peer that should be the center of an application, you can identify it through this variable. When you run net.info on a peer with this flag, it will return True in the hub field of the friendly_id.

Development Configuration

net.DEV

Default: None

This will activate the DEBUG level for the net logger. This helps a ton if you are having trouble tracking communication between peers.

Decorators

net.connect(tag=None)

Registers a function as a connection. This will be tagged and registered with the Peer server. The tag is a base64 encoded path to the function or can be manually tagged with the tag parameter. Tagging a named function allows you to interconnect functions between code bases.

For example, a connected function with no tag is tied to the func.__module__ + func.__name__. This means the peers will only know which functions are compatible based on the namespace staying the same.

# app version 1 running on PeerA
app/
  module/
    function

# app version 2 running on PeerB
app/
  module/
    function2 <- # renamed from function

In the above example, PeerA could make a request to PeerB to execute “app.module.function”. But that function no longer exists as far as PeerB is concerned. The source code and functionality could be exactly the same, but the logical location is different and therefore will fail.

# app version 1 running on PeerA
app/
  module/
    function (tagged: "MyTaggedFunction")

# app version 2 running on PeerB
app/
  module/
    function2 (tagged: "MyTaggedFunction")

In the above example, we have tagged function and function2 with the same tag, “MyTaggedFunction”. Now when PeerA requests to execute, it will request that PeerB executes “MyTaggedFunction” which is attached to the new renamed function.

Standard no tagging

@net.connect()
def your_function(some_value):
    return some_value

Custom tagging

@net.connect("MyTaggedFunction")
def your_function(some_value):
    return some_value

net.subscribe(event, groups=None, hubs_only=False, peers=None, on_host=None)

Subscribe to an event on another peer or set of peers. When the peer triggers an event using net.event, the peer will take the arguments passed and forward them to this function. By default, this will subscribe to all peers. You can also manually filter the peers by selectively passing in only the peers you want to subscribe to using the peers keyword argument.

Subscribe to “some_event” on group1 peers only.

group1_peers = net.peers(groups=['group1'])

@net.subscribe("some_event", group1_peers)
def your_function(subscription_args, subscription_kwarg=None):
    return some_value

Subscribe to “some_event” on a single peer.

peer = net.peers()[0]

@net.subscribe("some_event", peer)
def your_function(subscription_args, subscription_kwarg=None):
    return some_value

Subscribe to “some_event” on all peers.

@net.subscribe("some_event")
def your_function(subscription_args, subscription_kwarg=None):
    return some_value

net.event(name)

Registers a function as an event trigger. Event triggers are hooks into the event system between peers. Peers that net.subscribe to a peer, register an event on that peer.

Lets say PeerA subscribes to an event on PeerB using the following code.

# code on PeerA

peerB_id = "peerb"

@net.subscribe("doing_something")
def handleEvent(whatPeerBDid):
    ...do something

The subscribe decorator has communicated with PeerB and registered itself as on the list of peer to update if “doing_something” is ever triggered. On PeerB’s side we have the following.

# code on PeerB

@net.event("doing_something")
def imDoingSomething(*args, **kwargs):
    return args, kwargs

Note

All functions flagged as an event MUST return args and kwargs exactly as displayed above.

Now lets say in PeerB we want to trigger the event in a for loop and have it hand off the values to all the subscribed peers, PeerA in this case.

for i in range(0, 10):
    imDoingSomething(i)  # <- this will notify PeerA and pass the value of 'i'.

Keep in mind, you can have any number of peers subscribe to any kind of event. So if we had 5 peers subscribe to PeerB they would all be passed this value at runtime.

Lastly, these event functions act as a buffer between the runtime code of your application and the delivery of the content to the peer. For example:

var = MyCustomObject()  # some JSON incompatible object

...do a bunch of delivery prep and muddy up the application code...

imDoingSomething(var)

Instead

@net.event("doing_something")
def imDoingSomething(*args, **kwargs):

    obj = args[0]

    ...clean and prepare for transit here...

    args[0] = cleanedObj

    return args, kwargs

As you can see, these functions act as a hook into the delivery system when the event is triggered.

There are protections put in place to try to prevent the peer that triggered the event to be blocked by a bad handle on the subscribed peer. For the purpose of protecting the event triggering peer from remote errors, all connection errors and remote runtime errors will be caught and logged. But nothing will halt the running application.

i.e. event -> remote peer errors -> event peer will log and ignore

Stale peer subscriptions will be added to the stale list and pruned. Since the subscriptions are created per client request, the event peer will not know until a request is made that the subscribed peer went offline.

net.flag(name)

Register a function as a flag handler for the peer server.

Parameters:name – str

Functions

These functions are in place to help with discovering the network and interacting with other peers.

net.peers(refresh=False, groups=None, on_host=False, hubs_only=False)

Get a list of all peers on your network. This is a cached values since the call to graph the network can be long. You can also limit this search to only look for operating peers on the localhost which does not require the long network scan, just set the on_host kwarg to True.

Hubs act as the centers for certain application events or processes. In some cases, you may only want to subscribe or communicate with hubs. You can specify this through the hubs_only kwarg.

The initial call to this will hang for a few seconds. Under the hood, it is making a shell call to arp -a which will walk your network and find all hosts.

Standard call to get the peers on your network.

all_peers = net.peers()

Only search for peers on local host and not on the network.

all_peers = net.peers(on_host=True)

Refresh all peers in the cache

all_peers = net.peers(refresh=True)

Refresh the cache with peers in group1

all_peers = net.peers("group1", refresh=True)

Refresh the cache with peers in group1 and 2

all_peers = net.peers(["group1", "group2"], refresh=True)

Refresh the cache with all of the hubs on the network regardless of group.

all_peers = net.peers(hubs_only=True, refresh=True)

Refresh the cache with only hubs in group1 and 2

all_peers = net.peers(["group1", "group2"], hubs_only=True, refresh=True)

Parameters:

• refresh – Bool
• groups – str
• on_host – Bool
• hubs_only – Bool

Returns:

{

# Peers ‘peers’: {

b’MTkyLjE2OC4yLjI0OjMwMTAgLT4gTm9uZQ==’: {

‘group’: ‘None’, ‘host’: ‘192.168.2.24’, ‘port’: 3010, ‘hub’: False, ‘executable’: path/to/executable, ‘user’: username

},

},

# Groups ‘None’: [

b’MTkyLjE2OC4yLjI0OjMwMTAgLT4gTm9uZQ==’

]

}

Defaults

These are prebuilt flags and handlers for helping get information about peers and the data flow between peers.

net.info(*args, **kwargs)

Return information about the peer requested.

friendly_information = net.info(peer='somepeer')

Returns:peer.friendly_id

net.pass_through(*args, **kwargs)

Used for testing, takes your arguments and passes them back for type testing.

variable = "Test this comes back the way I sent it."

response = net.pass_through(variable, peer='somepeer')

Returns:*args, **kwargs

Peer

Each instance of python will be assigned a Peer singleton. This is not a true singleton for development and testing purposes. Although, for production, always access the peer using the net.Peer() call. The first thing to understand is that net.Peer() is referring to the Peer running in the current instance of python. So, if you are writing a connection and inside that connection you call net.Peer(). Depending on if that function is being run locally or remotely will determine which peer you are being returned.

net.Peer(*args, **kwargs)

Running Peer server for this instance of python.

Returns:net.peer._Peer

class net.peer._Peer(launch=True, test=False, group=None)

CONNECTIONS = {b'bmV0LmRlZmF1bHRzLmhhbmRsZXJzLm51bGw=': <function null>, b'bmV0LmRlZmF1bHRzLmhhbmRsZXJzLmNvbm5lY3Rpb25z': <function connections>, b'bmV0LmRlZmF1bHRzLmhhbmRsZXJzLmluZm8=': <function info>, b'bmV0LmRlZmF1bHRzLmhhbmRsZXJzLnBhc3NfdGhyb3VnaA==': <function pass_through>, b'bmV0LmRlZmF1bHRzLmhhbmRsZXJzLnN1YnNjcmlwdGlvbl9oYW5kbGVy': <function subscription_handler>}

SUBSCRIPTIONS = {}

FLAGS = {b'SU5WQUxJRF9DT05ORUNUSU9O': <function invalid_connection>, b'TlVMTA==': <function null_response>}

static decode(byte_string)

Decode a byte string sent from a peer.

Parameters:byte_string – base64 Returns:str

static decode_id(id)

Decode a peer id

Parameters:id – base64 Returns:dict {‘group’: str, ‘host’: str, ‘port’: int }

static encode(obj)

Encode an object for delivery.

Parameters:obj – JSON compatible types Returns:str

friendly_id

Get the peers id in a friendly displayable way.

Returns:str

static generate_id(port, host, group=None)

Generate a peers id.

Parameters:

• port – int
• host – str
• group – str

Returns:

base64

get_flag(flag)

Get a flags id.

Parameters:flag – str Returns:str

host

Host that the peer is running on.

Returns:str

hub

Defines if this peer acts as the hub for communication through the network.

Returns:bool

id

Get this peers id. This is tethered to the port and the executable path the peer was launched with. This is base64 encoded for easier delivery.

Returns:base64

port

Port that the peer is running on.

Returns:int

Full Package

• net
  • net package
    • Subpackages
      • net.defaults package
        • Submodules
        • net.defaults.flags module
          • Default Flags
        • net.defaults.handlers module
          • Default Connected Handlers
        • Module contents
    • Submodules
    • net.api module
      • api module
    • net.cli module
    • net.connect module
      • Connect Module
    • net.environment module
      • Handler Module
    • net.event module
      • Event Module
    • net.flag module
      • Flag Module
    • net.handler module
      • Handler Module
    • net.imports module
    • net.peer module
    • net.subscribe module
      • Subscribe Module
    • Module contents