---
id: rucio-clients
version: "41.1.1"
license: Apache-2.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# rucio-clients — Rucio client package

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 118.7K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Rucio-clients is the client-side package for Rucio, a data management framework originally built for the ATLAS high-energy physics experiment but now used across multiple LHC experiments and scientific communities. It provides both command-line tools and Python APIs to interact with a Rucio server, allowing users to organize data into scopes and datasets, manage replicas across distributed storage systems, and retrieve files using customizable policies.

The package depends on common HTTP and utility libraries (requests, urllib3, click, tabulate, rich) to handle communication, formatting, and user interaction. It is designed for system administrators and data scientists who need to work with large volumes of scientific data spread across heterogeneous storage backends—such as tape archives, cloud storage, and on-premise data centers—as a single federated entity. The framework handles distributed data recovery and adaptive replication automatically according to configured policies.

Use it for:

- Query and retrieve data files stored across multiple ATLAS or LHC experiment data centers from a single interface.
- Replicate datasets to new storage locations with automatic policy-driven placement and recovery.
- Organize petabyte-scale scientific datasets into scopes and datasets for collaborative research teams.
- Automate bulk data transfers and lifecycle management across globally distributed storage systems.
- Monitor and manage data availability and redundancy across heterogeneous storage technologies.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Rucio-clients provides command-line and programmatic access to Rucio, a distributed scientific data management framework that organizes, replicates, and retrieves large volumes of data across globally distributed storage systems.

Yes, if you work with a Rucio-managed data infrastructure (ATLAS, LHC experiments, or other institutions running Rucio servers). The package is production-stable, actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, and provides the only official way to interact with Rucio from Python. Not relevant for general-purpose data management outside a Rucio deployment.

## Install

pip install rucio-clients
uv add rucio-clients
poetry add rucio-clients

## Installing rucio-clients

Before you install: Low friction install with a pure-Python wheel and stable maintenance. Last release was 15 days ago, repository is active with recent commits, and the package has been in production since 2016. Supports current Python versions (3.9+).

License in practice: Apache-2.0 permissive license allows use in most commercial and open-source projects without significant restrictions.

Quickstart:

pip install rucio-clients

from rucio.client.client import Client
client = Client()
replicas = client.list_replicas(dids=[{'scope': 'scope', 'name': 'file.txt'}])

Requires Python 3.9 or later; Rucio server infrastructure must be accessible for the client to connect to.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package works offline or requires continuous server connectivity.
- Performance characteristics when managing very large numbers of files or replicas.
- Specific authentication mechanisms supported beyond what the client library provides.

## Package facts

- License: Apache-2.0 (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 118.7K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

distributed data management, scientific data access, federated storage client, data replication and recovery, large-scale data organization, multi-site data management, ATLAS data management, LHC data framework, scientific-data, distributed-storage, high-energy-physics

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