A gRPC command line client. It allows to invoke gRPC Calls from the commandline, supports tab-completion and formats the replies in a human readable format.
The main design goals are:
- Reflection support (no proto files required)
- Tab completion (currently supported in fish and bash) for
- services
- methods
- method arguments, including nested types
- Usable directly in the shell
Have a look at the project scope for details.
Synopsis:
gwhisper [OPTIONS] <hostname>[:port] <service> <method> [<fieldName>=FIELD_VALUE ]...
Execute gwhisper --help or click here to get detailed information and examples on how to use the tool.
Quick links:
Release version: download
Development version: git clone https://github.com/IBM/gWhisper.git
We try to keep the master branch stable. So if you experience bugs / missing features in the latest release, feel free to try the development version.
To be able to build and/or run gWhisper, you need to at least have the following dependencies installed on your system:
- cmake
- A C++ compiler
- gRPC link
including the protoc plugin, which is packaged separately in some linux distributions - protocolBuffers link
- Either bash or fish(>=v2.6) or zsh shell
You can install the prerequisites with:
Fedora:
dnf install cmake gcc protobuf protobuf-devel grpc grpc-devel grpc-plugins
Arch Linux:
pacman -S cmake gcc protobuf protobuf-c grpc
On some (e.g. ubuntu 16.04) distributions we tried, gRPC and/or protobuf packages seem to be not available, outdated or incomplete (missing gRPC protoc plugin). In this case, please build and install gRPC and protocolBuffers from the official sources.
Build the code
./build.sh
Executables are now available in the build folder.
If you do not want to install gWhisper, you need to source the completion file (for tab completion):
source ./complete.bash or source ./complete.fish
You may use the cmake-provided install target:
cd build
make install
Alternatively just copy the following files to the appropriate locations:
cp build/gwhisper /usr/local/bin/
cp complete.bash /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/gwhisper
cp complete.fish /usr/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/gwhisper.fish
If you are using zsh, add following lines into your ~/.zshrc for tab-completion support based on the bash completion script.
autoload bashcompinit && bashcompinit
source /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/gwhisper
Every element except the hostname in the following example CLI invocations can be tab-completed in the bash, fish or zsh shell.
Simple example of an unary RPC with only one field in the request message:
gwhisper exampledomain.org bakery orderCookies amount=5
Nested arguments (the config field contains a sub-message):
gwhisper exampledomain.org bakery orderCookies config=:chocolate=true smarties=false: amount=5
IPv6 address and explicit TCP port with an enum typed field:
gwhisper [2001:db8::2:1]:50059 bakery orderCookies type=ChunkyStyle amount=0x7
Feel free to use the Test-Server shipped with gWhisper and try out gWhisper on your own.
It is located in build/testServer and implements example RPCs which cover almost the
complete gRPC and protocol buffers function set.
gWhisper control characters ( :,) in string fields need to be escaped:
gwhisper 127.0.0.1 examples.ScalarTypeRpcs capitalizeString text=special: characters: :,::
2020-03-24 12:12:04: Received message:
| text = "SPECIAL CHARACTERS ,:"
RPC succeeded :D
Shell control characters need to be escaped via shell mechanisms (works as expected):
gwhisper 127.0.0.1 examples.ScalarTypeRpcs capitalizeString text=shell: Characters::: \\\'\"\$
2020-03-24 12:14:51: Received message:
| text = "SHELL CHARACTERS: \'"$"
RPC succeeded :D
Basic functionality is implemented, but you may experience bugs. Feel free to try it out and provide feedback/contributions.
What is working:
- Tab Completion (bash, fish and zsh only)
- Calling RPCs (unary + streaming)
- Input and output of all protocol buffer types
Some notable things which are not yet working:
- Security: Authentication / Encryption of channels (Planned in v0.4)
- Using Proto files instead of Reflection API (currently gWhisper only works with servers which have reflection enabled) (Planned in v0.4)
- Recursive datastructures (Planned in v0.4)
- Completion: Support for shells other than bash/fish
- Performance: Caching of reflection queries
Development and testing is done on Fedora Linux 31, Arch Linux and Ubuntu. We expect no bigger problems with building and running this software on different linux distributions.
We really appreciate any kind of feedback :-) So don't hesitate to open a new issue.
Please use the GitGub issues tab.
Be sure to search issues first to avoid duplicate entries.
Please have a look at CONTRIBUTE.md for general information about contributing. Some more technical documentation can be found here: Technical Documentation for Developers.