book

Twisted Network Programming Essentials, 2nd Edition

by Abe Fettig, Jessica McKellar

March 2013

Beginner

191 pages

4h 9m

English

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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Why Use Twisted?What This Book CoversConventions Used in This BookWhat You’ll NeedChanges Since the Previous EditionUsing Code ExamplesSafari® Books OnlineHow to Contact UsAcknowledgments
Installing TwistedInstallation on LinuxMore package options and optional dependenciesInstallation on WindowsOptional dependenciesAdding Twisted utilities to your PATHInstallation on OS XOptional dependenciesInstalling from SourceRequired DependenciesInstalling a C compilerInstalling zope.interfaceInstalling Twisted from a Release TarballInstalling Twisted from a Source CheckoutInstalling Optional Dependencies from SourceTesting Your InstallationUsing the Twisted DocumentationAPI DocumentationSubproject DocumentationFinding Answers to Your QuestionsMailing ListsIRC ChannelsStack OverflowTwisted Blogs
A TCP Echo Server and ClientEvent-Driven ProgrammingThe ReactorTransportsProtocolsProtocol FactoriesDecoupling Transports and ProtocolsA TCP Quote Server and ClientProtocol State MachinesMore Practice and Next Steps
What Deferreds Do and Don’t DoThe Structure of a Deferred ObjectCallback Chains and Using Deferreds in the ReactorPractice: What Do These Deferred Chains Do?Exercise 1Exercise 2Exercise 3Exercise 4Exercise 5Exercise 6The Truth About addCallbacksExercise 7Exercise 8Key Facts About DeferredsSummary of the Deferred APIMore Practice and Next Steps
Responding to HTTP Requests: A Low-Level ReviewThe Structure of an HTTP RequestParsing HTTP RequestsHandling GET RequestsServing Static ContentStatic URL dispatchServing Dynamic ContentDynamic DispatchCreating resources that are both renderable and have childrenRedirectsHandling POST RequestsA Minimal POST ExampleAsynchronous ResponsesMore Practice and Next Steps
Basic HTTP Resource RetrievalPrinting a Web ResourceDownloading a Web ResourceAgentRequesting Resources with AgentRetrieving Response MetadataPOSTing Data with AgentMore Practice and Next Steps
The Twisted Application InfrastructureServicesApplicationsTAC FilestwistdPluginsMore twistd ExamplesMore Practice and Next StepsSuggested Exercises

Basic In-Application Loggingtwistd LoggingCustom LoggersKey Facts and Caveats About Logging
Nonblocking Database QueriesMore Practice and Next Steps
The Components of Twisted CredTwisted Cred: An ExampleCredentials CheckersAuthentication in Twisted ApplicationsMore Practice and Next Steps
ThreadsSubprocessesRunning a Subprocess and Getting the ResultCustom Process ProtocolsMore Practice and Next Steps
Writing and Running Twisted Unit Tests with TrialTesting ProtocolsTests and the ReactorTesting DeferredsTesting the Passage of TimeMore Practice and Next Steps
IRC ClientsIRC ServersMore Practice and Next Steps
SMTP Clients and ServersThe SMTP ProtocolSending Emails Using SMTPSMTP ServersStoring MailIMAP Clients and ServersIMAP ServersIMAP ClientsPOP3 Clients and ServersPOP3 ServersMore Practice and Next Steps
SSH ServersA Basic SSH ServerUsing Public Keys for AuthenticationProviding an Administrative Python ShellRunning Commands on a Remote ServerSSH ClientsMore Practice and Next Steps
Contributing to Twisted

Content preview from Twisted Network Programming Essentials, 2nd Edition

Preface

This book is about Twisted, an open source, event-driven networking engine written in Python.

Twisted supports many common transport and application layer protocols, including TCP, UDP, SSL/TLS, HTTP, IMAP, SSH, IRC, and FTP. Like the language in which it is written, it is “batteries-included”; Twisted comes with client and server implementations for all of its protocols, as well as utilities that make it easy to configure and deploy production-grade Twisted applications from the command line.

Twisted includes both high- and low-level tools for building performant, cross-platform applications. You can deploy a web or mail server with just a few lines of code, or you can write your own protocol from scratch. At every level, Twisted provides a tested, RFC-conforming, extensible API that makes it possible to rapidly develop powerful network software.

In keeping with the spirit of the O’Reilly Essentials series, this book is not about torturing you with the nitty-gritty details of specific networking protocols, or with exhaustively documenting Twisted’s APIs. For a comprehensive treatment of how to use Twisted to build applications for a particular protocol, please get your footing with this book and then consult the official documentation.

Instead, the goal of this book is to give you fluency in the primitives Twisted provides and the idioms that it uses to build network clients and servers. It starts with an introduction to the underlying event-driven model and a big-picture view ...