pShell

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).