Opened 16 years ago

Closed 15 years ago

#82 closed enhancement (fixed)

build an app server?

Reported by: Brian Warner Owned by:
Priority: major Milestone: 0.4.2
Component: usability Version: 0.2.9
Keywords: Cc:

Description

I've been thinking it might be handy to build a sort of "application server", using Foolscap as the transport. Something like my limited understanding of the Waterken server.

Foolscap demonspawner: run multiple services from a single tub, kind of like the waterken server. Once the tub is running, use 'tool add' to allocate a swissnum, create a directory (with a hash of the swiss), populate it with a skeleton .rpy, then print the furl. The rpy should define a Service+Referenceable that will be started the first time someone hits the furl. Think Waterken for foolscap. Also, once remote promises are in, a CLI tool that evals "p.foo(12).bar(34)" and prints the result would be handy.

This could be a superset of the current file-transfer and command-runner demos in the docs/ directory. Maybe something like:

flappserver create DIR
flappserver start DIR
flappserver add shell 'ls /home/public'   -> FURL
flappserver add file-upload /home/inbox   -> FURL

where the 'shell' and 'file-upload' words are keys that map to some piece of code. The 'flappserver add' command would create a file in its swissnums/ directory, filled with python code that instantiates an object to do the desired operation.

Change History (3)

comment:1 Changed 16 years ago by Brian Warner

Other libraries which use foolscap could provide plugins, that would add new things to the list that "flappserver add" knows how to make.

comment:2 Changed 15 years ago by Brian Warner

[c9937f0adac5764fd1c4e225189c2d385ab581bc] starts work on this.

Hm, it might also be useful to create a generic "flappclient", with plugins that let you do "flappclient file-upload ..." and "flappclient exec". So far I've only been thinking of dedicated commands (like upload-file and exec-command), but for services which are meant to be accessed by a command-line tool, a generic flappclient seems more convenient (users which run a specific command a lot could always write a little shell-script wrapper to avoid typing "flappclient" all the time).

Next step is to write tests, implement the actual services, and write the clients.

comment:3 Changed 15 years ago by Brian Warner

Milestone: undecided0.4.2
Resolution: fixed
Status: newclosed

[41ab3f84d851cc2b4f6f73226fc2f2ff67e65659] adds the last pieces to what I want out of the app-server. It still needs to have a plugin mechanism, but the CLI feels pretty good, and the implementation works fine (and there's good-enough unit test coverage too). Time to close this one.

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