The CernVM-FS python package allows for the inspection of CernVM-FS
repositories using python. In particular to browse their file catalog
hierarchy, inspect CernVM-FS repository manifests (a.k.a. .cvmfspublished
files) and the history of named snapshots inside any CernVM-FS repository.

The support for this package is low: best effort, and with very
limited testing.

Example Usage:

   import cvmfs

   repo = cvmfs.open_repository('http://cvmfs.fnal.gov/cvmfs/grid.cern.ch')
   print 'Last Revision:' , repo.manifest.revision , repo.manifest.last_modified
   root_catalog = repo.retrieve_catalog(repo.manifest.root_catalog)
   print 'Catalog Schema:' , root_catalog.schema
   for nested_catalog_ref in root_catalog.list_nested():
       print 'Nested Catalog at:' , nested_catalog_ref.root_path
   print 'Listing repository'
   for full_path, dirent in repo:
       print full_path


Example programs "big_catalogs" and "catdirusage" are supplied in the
"utils" directory, which are also useful for figuring out where to
split up the catalogs in a cvmfs repository.  Also, "cvmfs_search" is
useful as a way to find out the original path(s) that correspond to a
cvmfs hash.

Rpms are available in the cvmfs-contrib yum repositories for EL6 & 7.
See https://cvmfs-contrib.github.io for instructions to enable one
of those repositories.  Then to install simply do:

# yum install -y python-cvmfsutils

The full test suite can be run by this command in the cvmfs subdirectory:

$ python3 test

The signature verification tests fail by default on EL9 because sha1 is
disallowed there for certificate checks.  That can be worked around with

# update-crypto-policies --set DEFAULT:SHA1