Twisted 0.9.0

Quote of the Release::

  <dash> i want distributed everything
  <dash> yesterday

What is this?

  Twisted is an event-based framework for internet applications.  It includes a
  web server, a telnet server, a multiplayer RPG engine, a generic client and
  server for remote object access, and APIs for creating new
  protocols.

What can I do with it?

  First, put /where/you/untarred/Twisted-0.9.0/bin into your PATH, or
  equivalent variable for your OS.  If you plan to do Python development using
  Twisted, you probably want to put /where/you/untarred/Twisted-0.9.0 into your
  PYTHONPATH environment variable as well.  Currently these scripts take a
  UNIX-centric view of the world, but to the best of my knowledge they function
  on win32 as well.

  Although there is lots of infrastructure support in Twisted, the immediately
  useful application for the end-user is Twisted Web.  Twisted Web is
  a webserver, written entirely in python, which is designed to be "zero
  maintenance".  The built-in scripts are probably only appropriate for a
  small-to-medium website, and the server can comfortably handle 50
  dynamic-content requests per second on middle-of-the-road hardware; however,
  since Twisted is entirely in Python, it's quite easy to script the webserver
  to do whatever you like!

Unit Tests

  See our unit tests run in a lovely Tkinter GUI, proving that the software is
  BugFree(TM)::

   % runtests

Basic Servers

  There are various servers you can build and run in the main distribution,
  although they won't be covered here.  Twisted servers do not have
  configuration files; instead, you instantiate a server and put it into a
  Pickle file; your servers and all of their component objects are saved in
  that file, and can be loaded with the Twisted Daemon.

  The normal type of server to create is a webserver.  You can run this
  command::

    % mkwebserver --static static

  which will make a "static" webserver (one that reads from the filesystem) and
  run it from the provided 'static' directory.  This creates a file named
  'web.spl'.  By default, this server will run on port 8080, but you can change
  it with the --port option.

  You can also create a telnet server::

    % mktelnetserver 8023 username password

  which will create a python-console telnet server listening on port 8023,
  which you can log into with the username "username" and the password
  "password".  This creates a file called 'telnet.spl'

Running Servers

  In order to run any of these servers, run this command::

    % twistd -f [application name].spl

  You can stop the server at any time by going back to the directory you
  started it in and running the command::

    % kill `cat twistd.pid`

"Spreadable" Webserver

  The web server can also host a telnet server as well as other services;
  mkwebserver --help can detail some of those options.  One of the most
  interesting applications, however, is the distributed webserver; multiple
  servers can all answer requests on the same port, using the twisted.spread
  package for "spreadable" computing.  In two different directories, run the
  commands::

    % mkwebserver --user
    % mkwebserver --personal [other options, if you desire]

  Both of these create a 'web.spl'; you need to run both at the same time.
  Once you have, go to http://localhost:8080/your_username.twistd/ -- you will
  see the front page from the server you created with the --personal option.
  What's happening here is that the request you've sent is being relayed from
  the central (User) server to your own (Personal) server, over a PB
  connection.  This technique can be highly useful for small "community" sites;
  using the code that makes this demo work, you can connect one HTTP port to
  multiple resources running with different permissions on the same machine, on
  different local machines, or even over the internet to a remote site.

Documentation and Support

  As of this release, I realize that Twisted's documentation is rather sparse.
  I encourage you to read the source code and docstrings, but if you're curious
  as to what Twisted can do, please feel free to drop me an email at
  glyph@twistedmatrix.com, or to join #python on irc.openprojects.net for some
  live help.

  Part of the problem with documentation on a project like this is that
  everything seems obvious to me :-).  If you have trouble with a particular
  aspect of the Twisted system, I'd like to hear about what was confusing and
  why.  The process of your learning may be the material I build a tutorial
  from, so don't hesitate to ask!

Copyright

  Most of the code in this distribution is (C) Twisted Matrix Laboratories.
  (Twisted Matrix Laboratories is a trademark of Matthew W. Lefkowitz,
  throughout this archive referred to as "Glyph").  The sole exception to this
  is the PyUnit directory, which is a derivative work of PyUnit, which can be
  found at http://pyunit.sourceforge.net.

  Twisted is made available under the GNU Lesser General Public License.  The
  included LICENSE file describes this in detail.