pyion: A Python Extension for the Interplanetary Overlay Network¶

Author:: Marc Sanchez Net
Address:: 4800 Oak Grove Dr. Pasadena, CA 91109
Contact:: marc.sanchez.net@jpl.nasa.gov
Organization:: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Release:: R2023a
Repository:: https://github.com/msancheznet/pyion
Abstract:: pyion is provides a set of Python C extensions that interface with the Interplanetary Overlay Network (ION), JPL’s implementation of the Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol stack.

Introduction¶

pyion provides a Python interface to JPL’s Interplantary Overlay Network (ION) to send/receive data through ION, as well as a limited and still experimental set of management functions to modify the ION configuration during runtime. Note that pyion does NOT install ION during its setup process. Instead, installation of pyion is only possible if ION is already available and running in the host.

To quickly demonstrate how pyion works, here is a brief example of two Python nodes exchanging data by interfacing with ION’s implementation of the Bundle Protocol (BP).

Example 1: BP Transmitter

import pyion

# Create a proxy to node 1 and attach to ION
proxy = pyion.get_bp_proxy(1)

# Open endpoint 'ipn:1.1' and send data to 'ipn:2.1'
with proxy.bp_open('ipn:1.1') as eid:
    eid.bp_send('ipn:2.1', b'hello')

Example 2: BP Receiver

import pyion

# Create a proxy to node 2 and attach to it
proxy = pyion.get_bp_proxy(2)

# Listen to 'ipn:2.1' for incoming data
with proxy.bp_open('ipn:2.1') as eid:
    while eid.is_open:
        try:
            # This is a blocking call.
            print('Received:', eid.bp_receive())
        except InterruptedError:
            # User has triggered interruption with Ctrl+C
            break

Pyion interfaces with ION through a collection of proxies. Each proxy is intended to be linked to a protocol in the DTN protocol stack (i.e., there is a proxy to the BP protocol, as seen in the previous example, but there are different proxies to LTP and CFDP, as well ION’s SDR and PSM), as well as a node number. To avoid having muliple proxies to the same node, proxies should not be created directly by the user but rather instantiated using pyion.get_<type>_proxy(<node_number>). Proxies are used to manage service access points to a given protocol (e.g., endpoint for the BP, entity for CFDP, etc.). This includes opening and closing them, as well as interrupting their operation if necessary. In turn, the access point itself is typically only used to send and receive data.

Multiple ION Nodes in a Single Host¶

If multiple instances of ION are running on the same host, each one with its own node number, then the ION_NODE_LIST_DIR environment variable needs to be defined (see the ION manual for further details). This can be done from Python by simply calling

import pyion
pyion.ION_NODE_LIST_DIR = '/<desired path>/nodes'

Reporting Bugs¶

Known bugs are currently documented at https://github.com/msancheznet/pyion/issues. Please submit new issues if new problems and/or bug occur.

Installation Instructions¶

Pyion is currently not hosted in any Python repository (e.g., pip, conda) because installation of the package is only possible in computers where ION is already available. To compile ION and pyion, several dependencies are needed. Therefore, to facilitate the installation process, here is a dockerfile that automates the building an Ubuntu-based Docker image with both ION and pyion installed in them. The steps shown in the file can also be used to install both programs in a host computer manually, and minimal adaptions are needed to operate in other operating systems. Also, note that this file assumes that ION and pyion 4.1.2 are being installed. It is provided here as guidance, and the user should modify as needed.

# Name of the base image
ARG IMAGE_NAME

# Pull image
FROM $IMAGE_NAME

# =====================================================
# === SET WORKING DIRECTORY AND ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
# =====================================================

# Define working directory.
WORKDIR /home

# Set environment variables.
ENV HOME /home
ENV ION_HOME /home/ion-open-source-4.1.2
ENV PYION_HOME /home/pyion-4.1.2
ENV PYION_BP_VERSION BPv7

# =====================================================
# === INSTALL DEPENDENCIES
# =====================================================

RUN \
    # Install basic dependencies
    apt update && \
    apt install -y --no-install-recommends man-db && \
    apt install -y --no-install-recommends build-essential && \
    apt install -y --no-install-recommends wget && \
    apt install -y git && \

    # Install ION adependencies
    apt install -y --no-install-recommends autotools-dev && \
    apt install -y --no-install-recommends automake && \

    # Install Python dependencies
    apt install -y --no-install-recommends python3-dev && \
    apt install -y --no-install-recommends python3-setuptools && \

    # Clean up (see https://www.fromlatest.io/#/ and
    # https://hackernoon.com/tips-to-reduce-docker-image-sizes-876095da3b34)
    rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

# =============================================================
# === DOWNLOAD, COMPILE AND BUILD ION
# =============================================================

RUN \
    cd $HOME && \
    wget https://sourceforge.net/projects/ion-dtn/files/ion-open-source-4.1.2.tar.gz && \
    tar -xvzf ion-open-source-4.1.2.tar.gz && \
    cd $ION_HOME && \
    autoheader && \
    aclocal && \
    autoupdate && \
    autoconf && \
    automake && \
    ./configure && \
    make && \
    make install && \
    ldconfig

# =============================================================
# === DOWNLOAD, COMPILE AND BUILD PYION
# =============================================================

RUN \
    git clone --single-branch --branch v4.1.2 https://github.com/msancheznet/pyion.git $PYION_HOME && \
    cd $PYION_HOME && \
    python3 setup.py install && \
    chmod -R +x $PYION_HOME

# =====================================================
# === OPEN BASH TERMINAL UPON START
# =====================================================

# Default command for the container.
CMD ["tail", "-f", "/dev/null"]

To use this dockerfile in a host with Docker, simply run:

docker build -t pyion_bpv7:4.1.2 -f .\pyion_v412_bpv7_ubuntu.dockerfile --build_arg IMAGE_NAME=ubuntu:20.04 .

Note that to install pyion, three environment variables are used:

$ION_HOME, which points to the base path where the ION source code is located (i.e., it contains the ION manual)
$PYION_HOME, which points to the base path where the pyion source code is located (i.e., it contains setup.py)
$PYION_BP_VERSION. It must be set to either BPv6 or BPv7, depending on which version of the BP was used when compiling ION.

Additionally, the user can also specify the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to indicate the location of the ION shared libraries (.h and .so files).

Finally, to use pyion with BPv6, ION must also be configured to use BPv6. This is achieved by using ./configure --enable-bpv6 while compiling ION.

Dependencies¶

The only dependency pyion uses is ION itself. All tests conducted to date have been performed using an Ubuntu-based operating system running in either a laptop, a Docker container, or a Raspberry Pi (arm architecture). The package might also work in other setups, but there is no guarantee that this is the case.

Pyion is internally built as a collection of Python C Extensions wrapped in Python classes or functions. These C extensions are compiled during the package’s installation process and require access to the ION’s public and potentially private interfaces (a collection of .h and .so files in an Ubuntu-based host). Therefore, setup.py makes the following assumptions on where these are located in the host file system:

Public ION Interface: Required for installing pyion. It is assumed to be located at /usr/local/include and usr/local/lib unless the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH is available.
Private ION interface: Optional for installing pyion. If not available, then pyion has all administrative functions disabled. To enable them, set the environment variable ION_HOME to ION’s root folder and then run the setup process.

Copyright and Licensing¶

pyion is currently an open-source package distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.

Disclaimers¶

Pyion is an experimental package developed in an ad-hoc basis as projects identify new needs. Basic functionality such as sending/receiving from through BP, LTP or CFDP has been tested somewhat exhaustively and thus should be stable. Newer functionality such as monitoring the state of ION’s SDR and PSM, or performing administrative functions (e.g., modify the contact plan, change an LTP span configuration parameter) are still being developed and might contain errors or simply not work.