kademlia/README.markdown

Python Distributed Hash Table

This library is an asynchronous Python implementation of the Kademlia distributed hash table. It uses Twisted to provide asynchronous communication. The nodes communicate using RPC over UDP to communiate, meaning that it is capable of working behind a NAT.

This library aims to be as close to a reference implementation of the Kademlia paper as possible.

Installation

pip install kademlia

Usage

This assumes you have a working familiarity with Twisted.

Assuming you want to connect to an existing network (run the standalone server example below if you don't have a network):

from twisted.internet import reactor
from twisted.python import log
from kademlia.network import Server
import sys

# log to std out
log.startLogging(sys.stdout)

def quit(result):
    print "Key result:", result
    reactor.stop()

def get(result, server):
    return server.get("a key").addCallback(quit)

def done(found, server):
    log.msg("Found nodes: %s" % found)
    return server.set("a key", "a value").addCallback(get, server)

server = Server()
# next line, or use reactor.listenUDP(5678, server.protocol)
server.listen(5678)
server.bootstrap([('127.0.0.1', 1234)]).addCallback(done, server)

reactor.run()

Stand-alone Server

If all you want to do is run a local server, just start the example server:

twistd -noy server.tac

Running Tests

To run tests:

trial kademlia