Fabric is a Python (2.5 or higher) library and command-line tool for
streamlining the use of SSH for application deployment or systems
administration tasks.
It provides a basic suite of operations for executing local or remote shell
commands (normally or via ``sudo``) and uploading/downloading files, as well as
auxiliary functionality such as prompting the running user for input, or
aborting execution.
Typical use involves creating a Python module containing one or more functions,
then executing them via the ``fab`` command-line tool. Below is a small but
complete "fabfile" containing a single task::
from fabric.api import run
def host_type():
run('uname -s')
Once a task is defined, it may be run on one or more servers, like so::
$ fab -H localhost,linuxbox host_type
[localhost] run: uname -s
[localhost] out: Darwin
[linuxbox] run: uname -s
[linuxbox] out: Linux
Done.
Disconnecting from localhost... done.
Disconnecting from linuxbox... done.
In addition to use via the ``fab`` tool, Fabric's components may be imported
into other Python code, providing a Pythonic interface to the SSH protocol
suite at a higher level than that provided by e.g. the ``ssh`` library (which Fabric itself uses.)