Fabric is a high level Python (2.7, 3.4 ) library designed to execute shell commands remotely over SSH, yielding useful Python objects in return. It builds on top of Invoke (subprocess command execution and command-line features) and Paramiko (SSH protocol implementation), extending their APIs to complement one another and provide additional functionality.

To find out what's new in this version of Fabric, please see the changelog.

The project maintainer keeps a roadmap on his website.

For a high level introduction, including example code, please see our main project website; or for detailed API docs, see the versioned API website.

The official website covers project information for Fabric such as the changelog, contribution guidelines, and so forth. Detailed usage and API documentation can be found at our code documentation site, docs.fabfile.org.

.. testsetup:: opener
    mock = MockRemote()
    # NOTE: hard to get trailing whitespace in a doctest/snippet block, so we
    # just leave the 'real' newline off here too. Whatever.
    mock.expect(out=b"Linux")

.. testcleanup:: opener
    mock.stop()

It builds on top of Invoke (subprocess command execution and command-line features) and Paramiko (SSH protocol implementation), extending their APIs to complement one another and provide additional functionality. .. note:

Fabric users may also be interested in two *strictly optional* libraries
which implement best-practice user-level code: `Invocations
<https://invocations.readthedocs.io>`_ (Invoke-only, locally-focused CLI
tasks) and `Patchwork <https://fabric-patchwork.readthedocs.io>`_
(remote-friendly, typically shell-command-focused, utility functions).

Core use cases for Fabric include (but are not limited to): * Single commands on individual hosts:

.. testsetup:: single-command

    from fabric import Connection
    mock = MockRemote()
    mock.expect(out=b"web1")

.. testcleanup:: single-command

    mock.stop()

• Single commands across multiple hosts (via varying methodologies: serial, parallel, etc): .. testsetup:: multiple-hosts

  from fabric import Connection mock = MockRemote() mock.expect_sessions(

  Session(host='web1', cmd='hostname', out=b'web1n'), Session(host='web2', cmd='hostname', out=b'web2n'),

  )

  .. testcleanup:: multiple-hosts
  
      mock.stop()
  
  

• Python code blocks (functions/methods) targeted at individual connections: .. testsetup:: tasks

  from fabric import Connection mock = MockRemote() mock.expect(commands=[

  Command("uname -s", out=b"Linuxn"), Command("df -h / | tail -n1 | awk '{print $5}'", out=b'33%n'),

  ])

  .. testcleanup:: tasks
  
      mock.stop()
  
  

• Python code blocks on multiple hosts: .. testsetup:: tasks-on-multiple-hosts

  from fabric import Connection, SerialGroup mock = MockRemote() mock.expect_sessions(

  Session(host='web1', commands=[

  Command("uname -s", out=b"Linuxn"), Command("df -h / | tail -n1 | awk '{print $5}'", out=b'33%n'),

  ]), Session(host='web2', commands=[

  Command("uname -s", out=b"Linuxn"), Command("df -h / | tail -n1 | awk '{print $5}'", out=b'17%n'),

  ]), Session(host='db1', commands=[

  Command("uname -s", out=b"Linuxn"), Command("df -h / | tail -n1 | awk '{print $5}'", out=b'2%n'),

  ]),

  )

  .. testcleanup:: tasks-on-multiple-hosts
  
      mock.stop()
  
  

In addition to these library-oriented use cases, Fabric makes it easy to integrate with Invoke's command-line task functionality, invoking via a fab binary stub: * Python functions, methods or entire objects can be used as CLI-addressable

tasks, e.g. fab deploy;

• Tasks may indicate other tasks to be run before or after they themselves execute (pre- or post-tasks);
• Tasks are parameterized via regular GNU-style arguments, e.g. fab deploy --env=prod -d;
• Multiple tasks may be given in a single CLI session, e.g. fab build deploy;
• Much more - all other Invoke functionality is supported - see its documentation for details.

We've packaged modern Fabric in a manner that allows installation alongside Fabric 1, so you can upgrade at whatever pace your use case requires. There are multiple possible approaches -- see our :ref:`detailed upgrade documentation <upgrading>` for details.

There are a number of ways to get involved with Fabric:

• Use Fabric and send us feedback! This is both the easiest and arguably the most important way to improve the project. Let us know how you currently use Fabric and how you want to use it. (Please do try to search the ticket tracker first, though, when submitting feature ideas.)
• Report bugs or submit feature requests. We follow contribution-guide.org’s guidelines, so please check them out before visiting the ticket tracker.

While we may not always reply promptly, we do try to make time eventually to inspect all contributions and either incorporate them or explain why we don’t feel the change is a good fit.

This project is licensed under the BSD-2 Clause License. More information can be found in the LICENSE file.