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 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

The quickest way to install snakebite is to run:

pip install snakebite

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

Copyright 2013 Spotify AB