Install the Swiftly client for Cloud Files

• Last updated on: 2016-04-18
• Authored by: Cloud Images

Swiftly is a client tool that you can use to upload objects to and download objects from your Cloud Files account. Swiftly manages the storage of large objects in Cloud Files. If you have a very large object (such as a virtual disk image file), Swiftly splits the file into smaller segments and then creates the large object manifest for you.

For more information about Swiftly, see the following sites:

• The Python package index page: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/swiftly/2.02
• Swiftly documentation: http://gholt.github.io/swiftly/
• Swiftly source code: https://github.com/gholt/swiftly

Install Swiftly on Ubuntu

These instructions were verified on a server built from a Rackspace Ubuntu 13.10 public image.

Invoke the following instructions from a bash shell on your server.

1. Update the apt-get database.

   sudo apt-get update
   

2. Install the Python installer, pip, using apt-get.

   sudo apt-get install python-pip
   

3. Install Swiftly using pip.

   sudo pip install swiftly
   

Install Swiftly on CentOS

These instructions were verified on a server built from a Rackspace CentOS 6.5 public image.

Invoke the following instructions from a bash shell on your server.

1. Install the Python installer, pip, using yum.

   sudo yum install python-pip
   

   If you get an error saying the package can’t be found, the EPEL repository needs to be enabled. For information on setting up the EPEL repository on your system, see Install EPEL and additional repositories on CentOS and Red Hat. When EPEL is enabled, run the install command for pip again.

2. Install swiftly using pip.

   sudo pip install swiftly
   

Install GNU Screen (optional)

GNU Screen is a program that you can use to start a screen session. A screen session looks just like an ordinary shell except that you can “detach” a terminal from a screen session, and whatever commands you are running continue running in the session. This functionality is useful when you start a long running process (such as a large object upload) from the command line. If your laptop battery dies, or your wireless connection is lost, or you are otherwise disconnected, the process continue to run in your screen session.

Install screen in Ubuntu

Invoke the following command from a bash shell:

sudo apt-get install screen

Installing screen in CentOS

Invoke the following command from a bash shell:

sudo yum install screen

Get started with the screen program

To start the screen program, run the following command. The -s option tells the program what shell to use. The -S option provides a name for the session, which is helpful if you will have several screen sessions running at the same time.

screen -s /bin/bash -S display-Name-For-Screen

After you start the screen program, you can enter regular bash commands. Screen commands, that is, commands requesting screen to do something, are escaped with Control-a (or C-a) . Some screen commands are single character. For example, to detach from screen, you type the following command:

C-a d

Other screen commands are longer. To use these, you first type C-a: and then you type the rest of the command in the status line of the screen window. For example, you can log screen’s output to a file so that you can go back and review it later by typing the following command:

C-a :

C-a : logfile name-of-log-file
C-a : log

The first command sets the name of the file in which the log will be recorded. The second command toggles logging on and off; because this is the first time you typed it, it will turn logging on.

We encourage to create a log of screen output so that you’ll have a record of everything that happened while you were detached from screen.

To exit screen, just type Control-d (without prefacing it with Control-a).

You can learn more about screen by visiting http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/screen.html.

Reattach to a running screen session

You can get a list of what screen sessions you currently have running by invoking this command from a bash shell:

screen -list

Your response will look something like the following:

There are screens on:
    3064.some-other-stuff   (Detached)
    3004.large-obj-transfer (Detached)
    3073.even-more-stuff    (Detached)
3 Sockets in /var/run/screen/S-root.

To reattach to the screen session named large-obj-transfer, for example, you note the session number (in this example, 3004) and then use the following command:

screen -r 3004

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