A proof-of-concept serialization, transmission and restoring python runtime.

About

pyteleport is capable of making snapshots of python runtime from (almost) aribtrary state, including locals, globals and stack. It then transforms snapshots into specially designed bytecode that resumes execution from the snapshot state. The bytecode can be run remotely: this way pyteleport teleports python runtime.

Install

pip install pyteleport

Example

Note that the two outputs were produced by different processes on different machines! This is what tp_bash does: it transmits the runtime from one python process to another (remotely).

Also works from within a stack:

def a():
    def b():
        def c():
            result = "hello"              # runs locally
            tp_bash(...)                  # teleport here
            return result + " world"      # runs remotely
        return len(c()) + float("3.5")    # c() runs locally, then remotely; the rest runs remotely
    return 5 * (3 + b())                  # b() runs locally, then remotely; sum and product run remotely
assert a() == 87.5                        # a() runs locally, then remotely; == and assert run remotely

API

TBD, see docstrings for the moment

How it works

• You invoke teleport in your python script.
• pyteleport collects the runtime state: globals, locals, stack.
• pyteleport dumps the runtime into a specially designed "morph" bytecode which resumes from a state resembling current runtime state.
• The bytecode is transmitted to the target environment and passed to a python interpreter there.
• The remote python runs the bytecode which restores the runtime state. The python program casually resumes from where it was interrupted.
• The local python runtime is terminated and simply pipes stdio from the target environment.

Known limitations

This is a proof of concept. The package works with cPython v3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, or 3.12.

Current limitations:

• no thread support
• no async support (needs further investigation regarding non-python stack)
• more generally, no native code support
• back-teleport and nested teleport (never tried)

License

LICENSE.md

Useful information

• Experimenting with AWS