No Huddle Offense

Fun with OpenShift

I’ve been playing around with OpenShift for the past hour. More specifically OpenShift Express which allows you to quickly develop apps Java, Ruby, PHP, Perl and Python and run them in the ‘Cloud’.

As a first exercise I wanted to check that I was able to get a simple Task board up and running. A good tutorial to create such a simple application with Pyramid can be found here.

After signing into OpenShift you can create a new application in the dashboard. Make sure that before doing so you have your namespace setup and your public ssh key configured in OpenShift. After creating the application a git repository is created for you. Simple clone this so you have a local working copy on your machine.

Now have a look inside you local working copy. You will find the directories data, libs, wsgi and some files like a README and the python setuptools related setup.py. Let’s start with editing the setup.py file:

from setuptools import setup

setup(name='A simple TODO Application to test OpenShift Features.',
      version='1.0',
      description='An OpenShift App',
      author='Thijs Metsch',
      author_email='thijs.metsch@opensolaris.org',
      install_requires=['pyramid'],
      classifiers=[
                     'Operating System :: OS Independent',
                     'Programming Language :: Python',
                    ],
     )

Please note the install_required parameter. Using this parameter will ensure that during deployment of you app the necessary requirements get installed – in this case Pyramid.

The following steps are pretty straight forward. The file application in the wsgi directory is as the name states a simple WSGI app. What we need to do is edit this file and let it call the todo app:

#!/usr/bin/python

import os

virtenv = os.environ['APPDIR'] + '/virtenv/'
os.environ['PYTHON_EGG_CACHE'] = os.path.join(virtenv, 'lib/python2.6/site-packages')
virtualenv = os.path.join(virtenv, 'bin/activate_this.py')
try:
    execfile(virtualenv, dict(__file__=virtualenv))
except IOError:
    pass

from todo import application

Please note that the file has no ‘.py’ extension.

Now we are ready to create the finally application. Please have a look at this tutorial as the code will almost be identical.

Create a file todo.py and follow the tutorial as described. Make sure you application runs locally. Put the ‘*.mako’ files in the subdirectory static under the wsgi directory. You can place the schema.sql file in the data directory. We will be using a sqlite database which will also be place in there.

The final step is to alter the todo.py file and remove the __main__ part. Instead we will introduce the following application function:

here = os.environ['OPENSHIFT_APP_DIR']

def application(environ, start_response):
    '''
    A WSGI application.
    
    Configure pyramid, add routes and finally serve the app.

    environ -- the environment.
    start_response -- the response object.
    '''
    settings = {}
    settings['reload_all'] = True
    settings['debug_all'] = True
    settings['mako.directories'] = os.path.join(here, 'static')
    settings['db'] = os.path.join(here, '..', 'data', 'tasks.db')

    session_factory = UnencryptedCookieSessionFactoryConfig('itsaseekreet')

    config = Configurator(settings=settings, session_factory=session_factory)

    config.add_route('list', '/')
    config.add_route('new', '/new')
    config.add_route('close', '/close/{id}')

    config.add_static_view('static', os.path.join(here, 'static'))

    config.scan()

    return config.make_wsgi_app()(environ, start_response)

When done we can push the code to the repository. When done you can visit you application at the given URL.

With this I’ve been able to create the app http://todo-sample.rhcloud.com/ and I also deployed my OCCI example service: http://occi-sample.rhcloud.com/. As you can see pretty straight forward & fast and of course fun!

What would be fun is to create a simple unittesting framework for OpenShift. For now you can find the code pieces at github.

Categories: Personal • Tags: OCCI, Python • Permalink for this article

Forget static callgraphs – Use Python & DTrace!

Forget about static analyzed callgrahs! No more running the code closing it and then looking at the callgraph. With DTrace you can attach yourself to any (running) process on the (running/production) system and get life up to date information about what the programm is doing. No need to restart the application or anything. This works for most programming languages which have DTrace providers (like C, Java and Python :-)). All you need to know is the pid.

Based on the information you get from DTrace (using the Python consumer) you can draw life updating callgraphs of what is currently happening in the program. Not only is it possible to look at the callgraph but you can also look at the time it took to reach a certain piece of code to analyze bottle necks and the flow of the program:

$ pgrep python # get the pid of the process you want to trace
123456
$ ./callgraph.py 123456 # trace the program and create a callgraph

So if you would have the following Python code:

class A(object):

    def sayHello(self):
        return 'I am A'


class B(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.a = A()

    def sayHello(self):
        return self.a.sayHello()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    print B().sayHello()

You would get the following life generated callgraph – the GUI can start, stop and restart tracing and get live updates as the DTrace probes fires:

Click to enlarge

The following screenshot was taken while looking into the printer manager:

Click to enlarge

DTrace for the win!

[Updated] Updated the screenshots.

Categories: Personal, Work • Tags: DTrace, Python • Permalink for this article

Python traces Python using DTrace

Another example of how to use Python as a DTrace consumer. This little program traces a Python program while is runs and shows you the flow of the code. The output is displayed in a Treeview (An indent mean that python called another function – Stepping back means that the function returned) and when double clicking the source code is displayed (Would be nice to open pydev as well).

Click to enlarge

Another example of Python as a DTrace consumer: This small GUI gives an up to date view of the number of syscalls made by an executable. Since this GUI is a live up to date view you can watch the circles appear, grow and become smaller again 🙂

Click to enlarge

Now on to other things…maybe creating live animated callgraphs as your program runs? 😛

Categories: Personal, Work • Tags: DTrace, Python • Permalink for this article

Python as a DTrace consumer – Part 2 walk the aggregate

Yesterday I blogged about how to use Python as a DTrace consumer with the help of ctypes. The examples in there are very rudimentary and only captured the normal output of DTrace – not the aggregates.

The examples in the last post have been altered and now we let DTrace work for a few seconds and then walk the aggregate:

    # aggregate data for a few sec...
    i = 0
    chew = CHEW_FUNC(chew_func)
    chew_rec = CHEWREC_FUNC(chewrec_func)
    while i < 2:
        LIBRARY.dtrace_sleep(handle)
        LIBRARY.dtrace_work(handle, None, chew, chew_rec, None)

        time.sleep(1)
        i += 1

    LIBRARY.dtrace_stop(handle)

    walk_func = WALK_FUNC(walk)
    # sorting instead of dtrace_aggregate_walk
    if LIBRARY.dtrace_aggregate_walk_valsorted(handle, walk_func, None) != 0:
        txt = LIBRARY.dtrace_errmsg(handle, LIBRARY.dtrace_errno(handle))
        raise Exception(c_char_p(txt).value)

The walk function is right now very simple but does work – please note the TODO 🙂

def walk(data, arg):
    '''
    Aggregate walker.
    '''
    # TODO: pickup the 16 and 272 from offset in dtrace_aggdesc struct...

    tmp = data.contents.dtada_data
    name = cast(tmp + 16, c_char_p).value
    instance = deref(tmp + 272, c_int).value

    print '+--> walking', name, instance

    return 0

When run the Python script will output (Would be fun to run this DTrace script with the help of Python – Python as a DTrace consumer tracing Python as DTrace provider :-P):

./dtrace.py 
+--> In chew: cpu : 0
  +--> In out:  Hello World
+--> walking updatemanagernot 2
+--> walking mixer_applet2 4
+--> walking gnome-netstatus- 135
+--> walking firefox-bin 139
+--> walking gnome-terminal 299
+--> walking python2.7 545
Error 0

Overall this works pretty smoothly – but needs a lot of updating before it is production ready – Still it gives an rough overview that Python can be a simple DTrace consumer while using ctypes. So now Python can be consumer and provider for DTrace *happy days* 🙂

The code (examples) have been updated on github.

Categories: Personal, Work • Tags: DTrace, Python • Permalink for this article

Python as a DTrace consumer using libdtrace

So DTrace is awesome – You can create nice analytics with it like Joyent does. But what I wanted is to access the output/aggregations from DTrace using Python to be able to parse the output as it comes. Using DTrace to Monitor Python or zones is already easy 🙂 Doing so it might be able to express up to date information to a (Cloud)Client (using of course sth. like OCCI)

So all I need is a Python based DTrace consumer which uses the dtrace library. To start with let’s reading the comments in the file /usr/include/dtrace.h – most notable is:

Note: The contents of this file are private to the implementation of the Solaris system and DTrace subsystem and are subject to change at any time without notice.

So we are already on our own – Next to that there is very limited documentation on writing DTrace consumers. A few quick searches might help you find some information. Probably the most up to date is to look into Bryan Cantrill’s consumer for node.js: https://github.com/bcantrill/node-libdtrace. And as mentioned a Python based consumer for libdtrace should be the goal of all this – so peeking to how others do it is probably a good idea :-P. For now let we will focus on a simple Hello World example.

First we need to understand how to use libdtrace – So let’s take a look at this diagram:

Source: http://www.macosinternals.com/images/stories/DTrace/drace_life_cycle.jpg

Following this life-cycle we can easily create some C code which will interface nicely with libdtrace. But since we can use it in C we can also use Python and ctypes to access the library. Here it is where we start the fun part.

To start with we will try to execute the following D script. It does nothing more than printing Hello World when executed using the dtrace command. But the output of this trace should now be received in Python code – so the output could be evaluated later on:

dtrace:::BEGIN {trace("Hello World");}

Now let’s write some python code – first we need to wrap some Structures which are defined in the dtrace.h file. Namely we will need dtrace_bufdata, dtrace_probedesc, dtrace_probedata and dtrace_recdesc. Since this is a blog post please refer to the source code at github for more details. We also need to define some types for callback functions – since we need a buffered writer, chew and chewrec functions as shown in the previous diagram:

CHEW_FUNC = CFUNCTYPE(c_int,
                      POINTER(dtrace_probedata),
                      POINTER(c_void_p))
CHEWREC_FUNC = CFUNCTYPE(c_int,
                         POINTER(dtrace_probedata),
                         POINTER(dtrace_recdesc),
                         POINTER(c_void_p))
BUFFERED_FUNC = CFUNCTYPE(c_int,
                          POINTER(dtrace_bufdata),
                          POINTER(c_void_p))

def chew_func(data, arg):
    '''
    Callback for chew.
    '''
    print 'cpu :', c_int(data.contents.dtpda_cpu).value
    return 0


def chewrec_func(data, rec, arg):
    '''
    Callback for record chewing.
    '''
    if rec == None:
        return 1
    return 0


def buffered(bufdata, arg):
    '''
    In case dtrace_work is given None as filename - this one is called.
    '''
    print c_char_p(bufdata.contents.dtbda_buffered).value.strip()
    return 0

The function called buffered will eventually write the Hello World string later on – The chew function will print out the CPU id.

With the basic stuff available new can load the libdtrace library and start doing some magic with it:

cdll.LoadLibrary("libdtrace.so")

LIBRARY = CDLL("libdtrace.so")

Now all there is left to do is follow the steps described in the diagram. First step is to get an handle an set some options:

    # get dtrace handle
    handle = LIBRARY.dtrace_open(3, 0, byref(c_int(0)))

    # options
    if LIBRARY.dtrace_setopt(handle, "bufsize", "4m") != 0:
        txt = LIBRARY.dtrace_errmsg(handle, LIBRARY.dtrace_errno(handle))
        raise Exception(c_char_p(txt).value)

Setting the bufsize option is important – otherwise DTrace will report an error. Now we’ll register the buffered function which we wrote in Python and for which we have a ctypes type:

    buf_func = BUFFERED_FUNC(buffered)
    LIBRARY.dtrace_handle_buffered(handle, buf_func, None)

Now we will compile the D script and run it:

    prg = LIBRARY.dtrace_program_strcompile(handle, SCRIPT, 3, 4, 0, None)

    # run
    LIBRARY.dtrace_program_exec(handle, prg, None)
    LIBRARY.dtrace_go(handle)
    LIBRARY.dtrace_stop(handle)

If this exists correctly (The C file in the github repository has all the checks for the return codes in it) we can try to get the Hello World. The chew and chewrec functions are also implemented in Python and can now be registered.

If the second argument on the dtrace_work function is None DTrace will automatically use the buffered callback function described two steps ago. Otherwise a filename needs to be provided – but we wanted to get the Hello World into our Python code:

    # do work
    LIBRARY.dtrace_sleep(handle)
    chew = CHEW_FUNC(chew_func)
    chew_rec = CHEWREC_FUNC(chewrec_func)
    LIBRARY.dtrace_work(handle, None, chew, chew_rec, None)

And last but not least we will print out any errors close the handle on DTrace:

    # Get errors if any...
    txt = LIBRARY.dtrace_errmsg(handle, LIBRARY.dtrace_errno(handle))
    print c_char_p(txt).value

    # Last: close handle!
    LIBRARY.dtrace_close(handle)

Now this all isn’t perfect and not ready at all (especially the naming of functions could be updated, a nice abstraction layer be added, etc) – but it should give a nice overview of how to write DTrace consumers. And for the simple example here both the C and Python code at the previously mentioned github repository do seem to work – and do in fact output:

cpu : 0
Hello World
Error 0

So maybe it’s time to combine pyssf (an OCCI implementation), pyzone (Manage zones using Python) and python-dtrace for monitoring and create a nice ‘dependable’ (Not my idea – these are the words of Andy) something…

Categories: Personal, Work • Tags: DTrace, Python • Permalink for this article