python-peps/pep-0243.txt

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PEP: 243
Title: Module Repository Upload Mechanism
Version: $Revision$
Author: jafo-pep@tummy.com (Sean Reifschneider)
Discussions-To: distutils-sig@python.org
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
Created: 18-Mar-2001
Python-Version: 2.1
Post-History: 20-Mar-2001, 24-Mar-2001
Abstract
For a module repository system (such as Perl's CPAN) to be
successful, it must be as easy as possible for module authors to
submit their work. An obvious place for this submit to happen is
in the Distutils tools after the distribution archive has been
successfully created. For example, after a module author has
tested their software (verifying the results of "setup.py sdist"),
they might type "setup.py sdist --submit". This would flag
Distutils to submit the source distribution to the archive server
for inclusion and distribution to the mirrors.
This PEP only deals with the mechanism for submitting the software
distributions to the archive, and does not deal with the actual
archive/catalog server.
Upload Process
The upload will include the Distutils "PKG-INFO" meta-data
information (as specified in PEP-241 [1]), the actual software
distribution, and other optional information. This information
will be uploaded as a multi-part form encoded the same as a
regular HTML file upload request. This form is posted using
ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data" encoding [2].
The upload will be made to the host "modules.python.org" on port
80/tcp (POST http://modules.python.org:80/swalowpost.cgi). The form
will consist of the following fields:
distribution -- The file containing the module software (for
example, a .tar.gz or .zip file).
distmd5sum -- The MD5 hash of the uploaded distribution,
encoded in ASCII representing the hexadecimal representation
of the digest ("for byte in digest: s = s + ('%02x' %
ord(byte))").
pkginfo (optional) -- The file containing the distribution
meta-data (as specified in PEP-241 [1]). Note that if this is
not included, the distribution file is expected to be in .tar
format (gzipped and bzipped compreesed are allowed) or .zip
format, with a "PKG-INFO" file in the top-level directory it
extracts ("package-1.00/PKG-INFO").
infomd5sum (required if pkginfo field is present) -- The MD5 hash
of the uploaded meta-data, encoded in ASCII representing the
hexadecimal representation of the digest ("for byte in digest:
s = s + ('%02x' % ord(byte))").
platform (optional) -- A string representing the target
platform for this distribution. This is only for binary
distributions. It is encoded as
"<os_name>-<os_version>-<platform architecture>-<python
version>".
signature (optional) -- A OpenPGP-compatible signature [3] of
the uploaded distribution as signed by the author. This may
be used by the cataloging system to automate acceptance of
uploads.
protocol_version -- A string indicating the protocol version that
the client supports. This document describes protocol version "1".
Return Data
The status of the upload will be reported using HTTP non-standard
("X-*)" headers. The "X-Swalow-Status" header may have the following
values:
SUCCESS -- Indicates that the upload has succeeded.
FAILURE -- The upload is, for some reason, unable to be
processed.
TRYAGAIN -- The server is unable to accept the upload at this
time, but the client should try again at a later time.
Potential causes of this are resource shortages on the server,
administrative down-time, etc...
Optionally, there may be a "X-Swalow-Reason" header which includes a
human-readable string which provides more detailed information about
the "X-Swalow-Status".
If there is no "X-Swalow-Status" header, or it does not contain one of
the three strings above, it should be treated as a temporary failure.
Example:
>>> f = urllib.urlopen('http://modules.python.org:80/swalowpost.cgi')
>>> s = f.headers['x-swalow-status']
>>> s = s + ': ' + f.headers.get('x-swalow-reason', '<None>')
>>> print s
FAILURE: Required field "distribution" missing.
Sample Form
The upload client must submit the page in the same form as
Netscape Navigator version 4.76 for Linux produces when presented
with the following form:
<H1>Upload file</H1>
<FORM NAME="fileupload" METHOD="POST" ACTION="swalowpost.cgi"
ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data">
<INPUT TYPE="file" NAME="distribution"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="distmd5sum"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="file" NAME="pkginfo"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="infomd5sum"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="platform"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="signature"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="protocol_version" VALUE="1"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" VALUE="Upload">
</FORM>
Platforms
The following are valid os names:
aix beos debian dos freebsd hpux mac macos mandrake netbsd
openbsd qnx redhat solaris suse windows yellowdog
The above include a number of different types of distributions of
Linux. Because of versioning issues these must be split out, and
it is expected that when it makes sense for one system to use
distributions made on other similar systems, the download client
will make the distinction.
Version is the official version string specified by the vendor for
the particular release. For example, "2000" and "nt" (Windows),
"9.04" (HP-UX), "7.0" (RedHat, Mandrake).
The following are valid architectures:
alpha hppa ix86 powerpc sparc ultrasparc
Status
I currently have a proof-of-concept client and server implemented.
I plan to have the Distutils patches ready for the 2.1 release.
Combined with Andrew's PEP-241 [1] for specifying distribution
meta-data, I hope to have a platform which will allow us to gather
real-world data for finalizing the catalog system for the 2.2
release.
References
[1] Metadata for Python Software Package, Kuchling,
http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/pep-0241.html
[2] RFC 1867, Form-based File Upload in HTML
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1867.html
[3] RFC 2440, OpenPGP Message Format
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2440.html
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
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