This provides a JNI-implemented HDFS client allowing node.js applications to natively interoperate with the Hadoop FileSystem.

There's a run script that will build + run the demo/demo.js sample.

var HDFS = require('node-hdfs');
var client = new HDFS({host:"default", port:0});

client.list("/tmp/path", function(err, files) {
  console.log(files);
});

At the moment it's still a little tricky. At the least you'll need to make sure libhdfs is built and installed in a path accessible by ldconfig (i.e. /usr/local/lib).

I (Paul) have had success with Cloudera's CDH distribution. Please see their instructions for installing from packages.

cd [hadoop_uncompressed_src_path]/src/c++/libhdfs
chmod +x ./configure
./configure

To build libhdfs in Mac OSX a few changes need to be done in the generated 'Makefile' by './configure':

Edit Makefile and search for a line that starts with 'CFLAGS = -g O2'

• Remove the parameter "-m"
• Add parameter "-framework JavaVM"

Search for a line that starts with 'DEFS = -DPACKAGE_NAME=\"libhdfs\" -DPACKAGE_TARNAME=\"libhdfs\"'

• Remove the parameter "-Dsize_t=unsigned\ int"

Comment or remove include in 'hdfsJniHelper.c' :

Search for '#include <error.h>' and remove (or comment it out).

Then build

make
chmod +x ./install-sh
make install

Copy the libraries to a folder accessible to the compiler or add it to the env with dyld (man dyld for more information).

cd [hadoop_uncompressed_src_path]/src/c++/install/lib
cp libhdfs* /usr/local/lib