Snakebite is a python library that provides a pure python HDFS client and a wrapper around Hadoops minicluster. The client uses protobuf for communicating with the NameNode and comes in the form of a library and a command line interface. Currently, the snakebite client supports most actions that involve the Namenode and reading data from DataNodes.

Note: all methods that read data from a data node are able to check the CRC during transfer, but this is disabled by default because of performance reasons. This is the opposite behaviour from the stock Hadoop client.

Snakebite requires python2 (python3 is not supported yet) and python-protobuf 2.4.1 or higher.

Snakebite 1.3.x has been tested mainly against Cloudera CDH4.1.3 (hadoop 2.0.0) in production. Tests pass on HortonWorks HDP 2.0.3.22-alpha (protocol versions 7 and 8)

Snakebite 2.x has been tested on Hortonworks HDP2.0 and CDH5 Beta and ONLY supports Hadoop 2.2.0 and up (protocol version 9)!

Snakebite releases are available through pypi at https://pypi.python.org/pypi/snakebite/

The quickest way to install snakebite (1.3.x) is to run:

pip install -I snakebite==1.3.x

To install snakebite 2.x run:

pip install snakebite

More information and documentation can be found at http://spotify.github.io/snakebite/

NOTE: make sure you have java 7 installed - it's required for testing, verify

java -version

To start playing with snakebite first you need to clone repository:

git clone [email protected]:spotify/snakebite.git

We recommend to use virtualenv (+ virtualenvwrapper) for development purposes:

pip install virtualenvwrapper

Create development environment for snakebite development:

mkvirtualenv snakebite_dev

Fetch all developer requirements:

pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

Run tests:

python setup.py test

Tests should succeed (remember to always test your changes).

Now install snakebite in your virtualenv, to ease development process:

python setup.py develop

Now, go ahead hack and come back with pull requests <3

Copyright 2013-2014 Spotify AB