hdfs is a native go client for hdfs, using the protocol buffers interface the namenode provides. It implements protocol version 9, which means it supports Hadoop 2.0.0 and up (including CDH5).

It tries to be idiomatic by aping the stdlib os package where possible. This includes implementing os.FileInfo for file status, and returning errors of type os.PathErrors for missing files, for example.

The best place to get started is the Godoc.

client, _ := hdfs.New("namenode:8020")

file, _ := client.Open("/mobydick.txt")

buf := make([]byte, 59)
file.ReadAt(buf, 48847)

fmt.Println(string(buf))
// => Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison.

The library also ships with a command line client for hdfs. Like the library, its primary aim is to be idiomatic, by enabling your favorite unix verbs:

$ hdfs --help
Usage: ./hdfs COMMAND
The flags available are a subset of the POSIX ones, but should behave similarly.

Valid commands:
  ls [-la] [FILE]...
  rm [-r] FILE...
  mv [-fT] SOURCE... DEST
  mkdir [-p] FILE...
  touch [-amc] FILE...
  chmod [-R] OCTAL-MODE FILE...
  chown [-R] OWNER[:GROUP] FILE...
  cat SOURCE...
  head [-n LINES | -c BYTES] SOURCE...
  tail [-n LINES | -c BYTES] SOURCE...
  get SOURCE [DEST]
  getmerge SOURCE DEST

It's also pretty fast compared to hadoop -fs, and, best of all, comes with bash tab completion!

You can install it with go get github.com/colinmarc/hdfs, or by cloning and running make install. Alternatively, running make will create a binary in the source directory, so you can install it where you want.

To enable tab completion, source cmd/hdfs/bash_completion, or drop it into the bash completion directory for your platform (on linux, this is usually /etc/bash_completion.d).

This library is heavily indebted to snakebite.