Overview
pShell is a Linux shell like interface providing a
few basic commands to interact with a Planetlab slice. It works as a
command center at the local machine and interact with slice nodes; in
other words, it does not work in a distributed manner (like bittorrent
based file dissemination).
The commands provided by the pShell are:
- help : Provides help on the pShell commands.
- setenv : Sets an environment varibale.
- plist : Lists the planetlab nodes and their status.
- addnodes : Adds nodes to the slice.
- delnodes : Removes nodes from the slice.
- slist : Lists the slice nodes and their status.
- srenew : Renews the slice?s expirary date.
- expdate : Renews the slice?s expirary date.
- chkstat : Probes the slice nodes for their statuses.
- install : Installs an rpm package in slice nodes.
- put : Uploads files from local machine to slice machines.
- get : Downloads a file from slice nodes to the local machine.
- cmd : Launches a command at slice nodes.
- session : Launches a command session at slice nodes.
- chkproc : Checks the status of a process in the slice nodes.
- connect : Opens ssh connections to slice nodes in the background.
- show : Brings a background ssh connection to the foreground.
- close : Terminates opened ssh connections to the slice nodes.
- keyreset : Resets and repopulates the public keys in the local machine.
- exit : Closes all opened connections and terminates the shell.
pShell is written in Python. It requires the configuration
file pShell_config.cfg to be present in the system which can
be used to control the behavior of the pShell.
The local machine where the pShell is run need not be a
Planetlab machine. However, it should have authorization to interact
with the Planetlab slice of interest (i.e. should have the proper
private key).