iotop for EPEL5

[Ray Van Dolson]

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 11:10:01AM -0500, BJ Dierkes wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Per the EPEL meeting last week we are attempting to get iotop working  
> for EL5.  The issue is that iotop requires Python >= 2.5 in order to use 
> the builtin netlink support (of the socket module).  That said, there is 
> also a fallback on the '_netlink C module':
>
> From /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/iotop/netlink.py:
>
> #------------------------------------------------
> try:
>     # try to use python 2.5's netlink support
>     _dummysock = socket.socket(socket.AF_NETLINK, socket.SOCK_RAW, 0)
>     _dummysock.bind((0, 0))
>     del _dummysock
>     def _nl_bind(descriptor, addr):
>         descriptor.bind(addr)
>     def _nl_getsockname(descriptor):
>         return descriptor.getsockname()
>     def _nl_send(descriptor, msg):
>         descriptor.send(msg)
>     def _nl_recv(descriptor, bufs=16384):
>         return descriptor.recvfrom(bufs)
> except socket.error:
>     # or fall back to the _netlink C module
>     try:
>         import _netlink
>     except ImportError:
>         raise ImportError("This is neither python 2.5 nor is "
>                           "the _netlink C module available!")
>     def _nl_bind(descriptor, addr):
>         _netlink.bind(descriptor.fileno(), addr[1])
>     def _nl_getsockname(descriptor):
>         return _netlink.getsockname(descriptor.fileno())
>     def _nl_send(descriptor, msg):
>         _netlink.send(descriptor.fileno(), msg)
>     def _nl_recv(descriptor, bufs=16384):
>         return _netlink.recvfrom(descriptor.fileno(), bufs)
> #------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> I can't figure out where the '_netlink C module' would be provided, as I 
> was hoping to implement that if possible.  All Google hits seem to  
> reference this code.
>
> Any ideas?

Hmm.  No. :)  Other than askin the iotop guys where they got that
_netlink module from or checking on one of the python development
lists.

I wonder how hard it would be to rip out the python 2.5+ socket module
as an external package and either install it explicitly with iostat in
some non-conflicting way or rename it and install it in some
non-conflicting way that could be used by a patched iostat...

Ray