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Revision: 1.25
Committed: Sat Apr 6 08:55:16 2013 UTC (11 years, 2 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.24: +92 -64 lines
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# User Rev Content
1 root 1.1 =head1 NAME
2    
3 root 1.4 AnyEvent::Fork - everything you wanted to use fork() for, but couldn't
4 root 1.1
5     =head1 SYNOPSIS
6    
7 root 1.4 use AnyEvent::Fork;
8 root 1.1
9 root 1.24 AnyEvent::Fork
10     ->new
11     ->require ("MyModule")
12     ->run ("MyModule::server", my $cv = AE::cv);
13    
14     my $fh = $cv->recv;
15    
16     =head1 DESCRIPTION
17    
18     This module allows you to create new processes, without actually forking
19     them from your current process (avoiding the problems of forking), but
20     preserving most of the advantages of fork.
21    
22     It can be used to create new worker processes or new independent
23     subprocesses for short- and long-running jobs, process pools (e.g. for use
24     in pre-forked servers) but also to spawn new external processes (such as
25     CGI scripts from a web server), which can be faster (and more well behaved)
26     than using fork+exec in big processes.
27    
28     Special care has been taken to make this module useful from other modules,
29     while still supporting specialised environments such as L<App::Staticperl>
30     or L<PAR::Packer>.
31    
32     =head1 WHAT THIS MODULE IS NOT
33    
34     This module only creates processes and lets you pass file handles and
35     strings to it, and run perl code. It does not implement any kind of RPC -
36     there is no back channel from the process back to you, and there is no RPC
37     or message passing going on.
38    
39     If you need some form of RPC, you can either implement it yourself
40     in whatever way you like, use some message-passing module such
41     as L<AnyEvent::MP>, some pipe such as L<AnyEvent::ZeroMQ>, use
42     L<AnyEvent::Handle> on both sides to send e.g. JSON or Storable messages,
43     and so on.
44    
45 root 1.25 =head1 PROBLEM STATEMENT
46    
47     There are two traditional ways to implement parallel processing on UNIX
48     like operating systems - fork and process, and fork+exec and process. They
49     have different advantages and disadvantages that I describe below,
50     together with how this module tries to mitigate the disadvantages.
51    
52     =over 4
53    
54     =item Forking from a big process can be very slow.
55    
56     A 5GB process needs 0.05s to fork on my 3.6GHz amd64 GNU/Linux box. This
57     overhead is often shared with exec (because you have to fork first), but
58     in some circumstances (e.g. when vfork is used), fork+exec can be much
59     faster.
60    
61     This module can help here by telling a small(er) helper process to fork,
62     which is faster then forking the main process, and also uses vfork where
63     possible. This gives the speed of vfork, with the flexibility of fork.
64    
65     =item Forking usually creates a copy-on-write copy of the parent
66     process.
67    
68     For example, modules or data files that are loaded will not use additional
69     memory after a fork. When exec'ing a new process, modules and data files
70     might need to be loaded again, at extra CPU and memory cost. But when
71     forking, literally all data structures are copied - if the program frees
72     them and replaces them by new data, the child processes will retain the
73     old version even if it isn't used, which can suddenly and unexpectedly
74     increase memory usage when freeing memory.
75    
76     The trade-off is between more sharing with fork (which can be good or
77     bad), and no sharing with exec.
78    
79     This module allows the main program to do a controlled fork, and allows
80     modules to exec processes safely at any time. When creating a custom
81     process pool you can take advantage of data sharing via fork without
82     risking to share large dynamic data structures that will blow up child
83     memory usage.
84    
85     In other words, this module puts you into control over what is being
86     shared and what isn't, at all times.
87    
88     =item Exec'ing a new perl process might be difficult.
89    
90     For example, it is not easy to find the correct path to the perl
91     interpreter - C<$^X> might not be a perl interpreter at all.
92    
93     This module tries hard to identify the correct path to the perl
94     interpreter. With a cooperative main program, exec'ing the interpreter
95     might not even be necessary, but even without help from the main program,
96     it will still work when used from a module.
97    
98     =item Exec'ing a new perl process might be slow, as all necessary modules
99     have to be loaded from disk again, with no guarantees of success.
100    
101     Long running processes might run into problems when perl is upgraded
102     and modules are no longer loadable because they refer to a different
103     perl version, or parts of a distribution are newer than the ones already
104     loaded.
105    
106     This module supports creating pre-initialised perl processes to be used as
107     a template for new processes.
108    
109     =item Forking might be impossible when a program is running.
110    
111     For example, POSIX makes it almost impossible to fork from a
112     multi-threaded program while doing anything useful in the child - in
113     fact, if your perl program uses POSIX threads (even indirectly via
114     e.g. L<IO::AIO> or L<threads>), you cannot call fork on the perl level
115     anymore without risking corruption issues on a number of operating
116     systems.
117    
118     This module can safely fork helper processes at any time, by calling
119     fork+exec in C, in a POSIX-compatible way (via L<Proc::FastSpawn>).
120    
121     =item Parallel processing with fork might be inconvenient or difficult
122     to implement. Modules might not work in both parent and child.
123    
124     For example, when a program uses an event loop and creates watchers it
125     becomes very hard to use the event loop from a child program, as the
126     watchers already exist but are only meaningful in the parent. Worse, a
127     module might want to use such a module, not knowing whether another module
128     or the main program also does, leading to problems.
129    
130     With this module only the main program is allowed to create new processes
131     by forking (because only the main program can know when it is still safe
132     to do so) - all other processes are created via fork+exec, which makes it
133     possible to use modules such as event loops or window interfaces safely.
134    
135     =back
136    
137 root 1.24 =head1 EXAMPLES
138    
139     =head2 Create a single new process, tell it to run your worker function.
140 root 1.9
141     AnyEvent::Fork
142     ->new
143     ->require ("MyModule")
144     ->run ("MyModule::worker, sub {
145     my ($master_filehandle) = @_;
146    
147     # now $master_filehandle is connected to the
148     # $slave_filehandle in the new process.
149     });
150    
151     # MyModule::worker might look like this
152     sub MyModule::worker {
153     my ($slave_filehandle) = @_;
154    
155     # now $slave_filehandle is connected to the $master_filehandle
156     # in the original prorcess. have fun!
157     }
158    
159 root 1.24 =head2 Create a pool of server processes all accepting on the same socket.
160 root 1.9
161     # create listener socket
162     my $listener = ...;
163    
164     # create a pool template, initialise it and give it the socket
165     my $pool = AnyEvent::Fork
166     ->new
167     ->require ("Some::Stuff", "My::Server")
168     ->send_fh ($listener);
169    
170     # now create 10 identical workers
171     for my $id (1..10) {
172     $pool
173     ->fork
174     ->send_arg ($id)
175     ->run ("My::Server::run");
176     }
177    
178     # now do other things - maybe use the filehandle provided by run
179     # to wait for the processes to die. or whatever.
180    
181     # My::Server::run might look like this
182     sub My::Server::run {
183     my ($slave, $listener, $id) = @_;
184    
185     close $slave; # we do not use the socket, so close it to save resources
186    
187     # we could go ballistic and use e.g. AnyEvent here, or IO::AIO,
188     # or anything we usually couldn't do in a process forked normally.
189     while (my $socket = $listener->accept) {
190     # do sth. with new socket
191     }
192     }
193    
194 root 1.24 =head2 use AnyEvent::Fork as a faster fork+exec
195 root 1.23
196 root 1.24 This runs /bin/echo hi, with stdout redirected to /tmp/log and stderr to
197     the communications socket. It is usually faster than fork+exec, but still
198     let's you prepare the environment.
199 root 1.23
200     open my $output, ">/tmp/log" or die "$!";
201    
202     AnyEvent::Fork
203     ->new
204     ->eval ('
205     sub run {
206     my ($fh, $output, @cmd) = @_;
207    
208     # perl will clear close-on-exec on STDOUT/STDERR
209     open STDOUT, ">&", $output or die;
210     open STDERR, ">&", $fh or die;
211    
212     exec @cmd;
213     }
214     ')
215     ->send_fh ($output)
216     ->send_arg ("/bin/echo", "hi")
217     ->run ("run", my $cv = AE::cv);
218    
219     my $stderr = $cv->recv;
220    
221 root 1.3 =head1 CONCEPTS
222    
223     This module can create new processes either by executing a new perl
224     process, or by forking from an existing "template" process.
225    
226     Each such process comes with its own file handle that can be used to
227     communicate with it (it's actually a socket - one end in the new process,
228     one end in the main process), and among the things you can do in it are
229     load modules, fork new processes, send file handles to it, and execute
230     functions.
231    
232     There are multiple ways to create additional processes to execute some
233     jobs:
234    
235     =over 4
236    
237     =item fork a new process from the "default" template process, load code,
238     run it
239    
240     This module has a "default" template process which it executes when it is
241     needed the first time. Forking from this process shares the memory used
242     for the perl interpreter with the new process, but loading modules takes
243     time, and the memory is not shared with anything else.
244    
245     This is ideal for when you only need one extra process of a kind, with the
246 root 1.17 option of starting and stopping it on demand.
247 root 1.3
248 root 1.9 Example:
249    
250     AnyEvent::Fork
251     ->new
252     ->require ("Some::Module")
253     ->run ("Some::Module::run", sub {
254     my ($fork_fh) = @_;
255     });
256    
257 root 1.3 =item fork a new template process, load code, then fork processes off of
258     it and run the code
259    
260     When you need to have a bunch of processes that all execute the same (or
261     very similar) tasks, then a good way is to create a new template process
262     for them, loading all the modules you need, and then create your worker
263     processes from this new template process.
264    
265     This way, all code (and data structures) that can be shared (e.g. the
266     modules you loaded) is shared between the processes, and each new process
267     consumes relatively little memory of its own.
268    
269     The disadvantage of this approach is that you need to create a template
270     process for the sole purpose of forking new processes from it, but if you
271 root 1.17 only need a fixed number of processes you can create them, and then destroy
272 root 1.3 the template process.
273    
274 root 1.9 Example:
275    
276     my $template = AnyEvent::Fork->new->require ("Some::Module");
277    
278     for (1..10) {
279     $template->fork->run ("Some::Module::run", sub {
280     my ($fork_fh) = @_;
281     });
282     }
283    
284     # at this point, you can keep $template around to fork new processes
285     # later, or you can destroy it, which causes it to vanish.
286    
287 root 1.3 =item execute a new perl interpreter, load some code, run it
288    
289     This is relatively slow, and doesn't allow you to share memory between
290     multiple processes.
291    
292     The only advantage is that you don't have to have a template process
293     hanging around all the time to fork off some new processes, which might be
294     an advantage when there are long time spans where no extra processes are
295     needed.
296    
297 root 1.9 Example:
298    
299     AnyEvent::Fork
300     ->new_exec
301     ->require ("Some::Module")
302     ->run ("Some::Module::run", sub {
303     my ($fork_fh) = @_;
304     });
305    
306 root 1.3 =back
307    
308     =head1 FUNCTIONS
309    
310 root 1.1 =over 4
311    
312     =cut
313    
314 root 1.4 package AnyEvent::Fork;
315 root 1.1
316     use common::sense;
317    
318 root 1.18 use Errno ();
319 root 1.1
320     use AnyEvent;
321     use AnyEvent::Util ();
322    
323 root 1.15 use IO::FDPass;
324    
325 root 1.21 our $VERSION = 0.5;
326 root 1.12
327 root 1.4 our $PERL; # the path to the perl interpreter, deduces with various forms of magic
328 root 1.1
329 root 1.4 =item my $pool = new AnyEvent::Fork key => value...
330 root 1.1
331     Create a new process pool. The following named parameters are supported:
332    
333     =over 4
334    
335     =back
336    
337     =cut
338    
339 root 1.5 # the early fork template process
340     our $EARLY;
341    
342 root 1.4 # the empty template process
343     our $TEMPLATE;
344    
345     sub _cmd {
346     my $self = shift;
347    
348 root 1.18 # ideally, we would want to use "a (w/a)*" as format string, but perl
349     # versions from at least 5.8.9 to 5.16.3 are all buggy and can't unpack
350     # it.
351 root 1.19 push @{ $self->[2] }, pack "a L/a*", $_[0], $_[1];
352 root 1.4
353 root 1.19 $self->[3] ||= AE::io $self->[1], 1, sub {
354     do {
355     # send the next "thing" in the queue - either a reference to an fh,
356     # or a plain string.
357    
358     if (ref $self->[2][0]) {
359     # send fh
360     unless (IO::FDPass::send fileno $self->[1], fileno ${ $self->[2][0] }) {
361     return if $! == Errno::EAGAIN || $! == Errno::EWOULDBLOCK;
362     undef $self->[3];
363     die "AnyEvent::Fork: file descriptor send failure: $!";
364 root 1.18 }
365 root 1.4
366 root 1.19 shift @{ $self->[2] };
367 root 1.18
368 root 1.19 } else {
369     # send string
370     my $len = syswrite $self->[1], $self->[2][0];
371    
372     unless ($len) {
373     return if $! == Errno::EAGAIN || $! == Errno::EWOULDBLOCK;
374     undef $self->[3];
375     die "AnyEvent::Fork: command write failure: $!";
376     }
377 root 1.18
378 root 1.19 substr $self->[2][0], 0, $len, "";
379     shift @{ $self->[2] } unless length $self->[2][0];
380     }
381     } while @{ $self->[2] };
382    
383     # everything written
384     undef $self->[3];
385    
386     # invoke run callback, if any
387 root 1.20 $self->[4]->($self->[1]) if $self->[4];
388 root 1.19 };
389 root 1.14
390     () # make sure we don't leak the watcher
391 root 1.4 }
392 root 1.1
393 root 1.4 sub _new {
394 root 1.19 my ($self, $fh, $pid) = @_;
395 root 1.1
396 root 1.6 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking $fh, 1;
397    
398 root 1.4 $self = bless [
399 root 1.20 $pid,
400 root 1.1 $fh,
401 root 1.4 [], # write queue - strings or fd's
402     undef, # AE watcher
403     ], $self;
404    
405     $self
406 root 1.1 }
407    
408 root 1.6 # fork template from current process, used by AnyEvent::Fork::Early/Template
409     sub _new_fork {
410     my ($fh, $slave) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_socketpair;
411 root 1.7 my $parent = $$;
412    
413 root 1.6 my $pid = fork;
414    
415     if ($pid eq 0) {
416     require AnyEvent::Fork::Serve;
417 root 1.7 $AnyEvent::Fork::Serve::OWNER = $parent;
418 root 1.6 close $fh;
419 root 1.7 $0 = "$_[1] of $parent";
420 root 1.16 $SIG{CHLD} = 'IGNORE';
421 root 1.6 AnyEvent::Fork::Serve::serve ($slave);
422 root 1.15 exit 0;
423 root 1.6 } elsif (!$pid) {
424     die "AnyEvent::Fork::Early/Template: unable to fork template process: $!";
425     }
426    
427 root 1.19 AnyEvent::Fork->_new ($fh, $pid)
428 root 1.6 }
429    
430 root 1.4 =item my $proc = new AnyEvent::Fork
431 root 1.1
432 root 1.4 Create a new "empty" perl interpreter process and returns its process
433     object for further manipulation.
434 root 1.1
435 root 1.4 The new process is forked from a template process that is kept around
436     for this purpose. When it doesn't exist yet, it is created by a call to
437     C<new_exec> and kept around for future calls.
438    
439 root 1.9 When the process object is destroyed, it will release the file handle
440     that connects it with the new process. When the new process has not yet
441     called C<run>, then the process will exit. Otherwise, what happens depends
442     entirely on the code that is executed.
443    
444 root 1.4 =cut
445    
446     sub new {
447     my $class = shift;
448 root 1.1
449 root 1.4 $TEMPLATE ||= $class->new_exec;
450     $TEMPLATE->fork
451 root 1.1 }
452    
453 root 1.4 =item $new_proc = $proc->fork
454    
455     Forks C<$proc>, creating a new process, and returns the process object
456     of the new process.
457    
458     If any of the C<send_> functions have been called before fork, then they
459     will be cloned in the child. For example, in a pre-forked server, you
460     might C<send_fh> the listening socket into the template process, and then
461     keep calling C<fork> and C<run>.
462    
463     =cut
464    
465     sub fork {
466     my ($self) = @_;
467 root 1.1
468     my ($fh, $slave) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_socketpair;
469 root 1.4
470     $self->send_fh ($slave);
471     $self->_cmd ("f");
472    
473     AnyEvent::Fork->_new ($fh)
474     }
475    
476     =item my $proc = new_exec AnyEvent::Fork
477    
478     Create a new "empty" perl interpreter process and returns its process
479     object for further manipulation.
480    
481     Unlike the C<new> method, this method I<always> spawns a new perl process
482     (except in some cases, see L<AnyEvent::Fork::Early> for details). This
483     reduces the amount of memory sharing that is possible, and is also slower.
484    
485     You should use C<new> whenever possible, except when having a template
486     process around is unacceptable.
487    
488 root 1.17 The path to the perl interpreter is divined using various methods - first
489 root 1.4 C<$^X> is investigated to see if the path ends with something that sounds
490     as if it were the perl interpreter. Failing this, the module falls back to
491     using C<$Config::Config{perlpath}>.
492    
493     =cut
494    
495     sub new_exec {
496     my ($self) = @_;
497    
498 root 1.5 return $EARLY->fork
499     if $EARLY;
500    
501 root 1.4 # first find path of perl
502     my $perl = $;
503    
504     # first we try $^X, but the path must be absolute (always on win32), and end in sth.
505     # that looks like perl. this obviously only works for posix and win32
506     unless (
507 root 1.15 ($^O eq "MSWin32" || $perl =~ m%^/%)
508 root 1.4 && $perl =~ m%[/\\]perl(?:[0-9]+(\.[0-9]+)+)?(\.exe)?$%i
509     ) {
510     # if it doesn't look perlish enough, try Config
511     require Config;
512     $perl = $Config::Config{perlpath};
513     $perl =~ s/(?:\Q$Config::Config{_exe}\E)?$/$Config::Config{_exe}/;
514     }
515    
516     require Proc::FastSpawn;
517    
518     my ($fh, $slave) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_socketpair;
519     Proc::FastSpawn::fd_inherit (fileno $slave);
520    
521 root 1.10 # new fh's should always be set cloexec (due to $^F),
522     # but hey, not on win32, so we always clear the inherit flag.
523     Proc::FastSpawn::fd_inherit (fileno $fh, 0);
524    
525 root 1.4 # quick. also doesn't work in win32. of course. what did you expect
526     #local $ENV{PERL5LIB} = join ":", grep !ref, @INC;
527 root 1.1 my %env = %ENV;
528 root 1.15 $env{PERL5LIB} = join +($^O eq "MSWin32" ? ";" : ":"), grep !ref, @INC;
529 root 1.1
530 root 1.19 my $pid = Proc::FastSpawn::spawn (
531 root 1.4 $perl,
532 root 1.7 ["perl", "-MAnyEvent::Fork::Serve", "-e", "AnyEvent::Fork::Serve::me", fileno $slave, $$],
533 root 1.4 [map "$_=$env{$_}", keys %env],
534     ) or die "unable to spawn AnyEvent::Fork server: $!";
535    
536 root 1.19 $self->_new ($fh, $pid)
537 root 1.4 }
538    
539 root 1.20 =item $pid = $proc->pid
540    
541     Returns the process id of the process I<iff it is a direct child of the
542     process> running AnyEvent::Fork, and C<undef> otherwise.
543    
544     Normally, only processes created via C<< AnyEvent::Fork->new_exec >> and
545     L<AnyEvent::Fork::Template> are direct children, and you are responsible
546     to clean up their zombies when they die.
547    
548     All other processes are not direct children, and will be cleaned up by
549     AnyEvent::Fork.
550    
551     =cut
552    
553     sub pid {
554     $_[0][0]
555     }
556    
557 root 1.9 =item $proc = $proc->eval ($perlcode, @args)
558    
559     Evaluates the given C<$perlcode> as ... perl code, while setting C<@_> to
560 root 1.23 the strings specified by C<@args>, in the "main" package.
561 root 1.9
562     This call is meant to do any custom initialisation that might be required
563     (for example, the C<require> method uses it). It's not supposed to be used
564     to completely take over the process, use C<run> for that.
565    
566     The code will usually be executed after this call returns, and there is no
567     way to pass anything back to the calling process. Any evaluation errors
568     will be reported to stderr and cause the process to exit.
569    
570 root 1.23 If you want to execute some code to take over the process (see the
571     "fork+exec" example in the SYNOPSIS), you should compile a function via
572     C<eval> first, and then call it via C<run>. This also gives you access to
573     any arguments passed via the C<send_xxx> methods, such as file handles.
574    
575 root 1.9 Returns the process object for easy chaining of method calls.
576    
577     =cut
578    
579     sub eval {
580     my ($self, $code, @args) = @_;
581    
582 root 1.19 $self->_cmd (e => pack "(w/a*)*", $code, @args);
583 root 1.9
584     $self
585     }
586    
587 root 1.4 =item $proc = $proc->require ($module, ...)
588 root 1.1
589 root 1.9 Tries to load the given module(s) into the process
590 root 1.1
591 root 1.4 Returns the process object for easy chaining of method calls.
592 root 1.1
593 root 1.9 =cut
594    
595     sub require {
596     my ($self, @modules) = @_;
597    
598     s%::%/%g for @modules;
599     $self->eval ('require "$_.pm" for @_', @modules);
600    
601     $self
602     }
603    
604 root 1.4 =item $proc = $proc->send_fh ($handle, ...)
605 root 1.1
606 root 1.4 Send one or more file handles (I<not> file descriptors) to the process,
607     to prepare a call to C<run>.
608 root 1.1
609 root 1.4 The process object keeps a reference to the handles until this is done,
610     so you must not explicitly close the handles. This is most easily
611     accomplished by simply not storing the file handles anywhere after passing
612     them to this method.
613    
614     Returns the process object for easy chaining of method calls.
615    
616 root 1.17 Example: pass a file handle to a process, and release it without
617     closing. It will be closed automatically when it is no longer used.
618 root 1.9
619     $proc->send_fh ($my_fh);
620     undef $my_fh; # free the reference if you want, but DO NOT CLOSE IT
621    
622 root 1.4 =cut
623    
624     sub send_fh {
625     my ($self, @fh) = @_;
626    
627     for my $fh (@fh) {
628     $self->_cmd ("h");
629     push @{ $self->[2] }, \$fh;
630     }
631    
632     $self
633 root 1.1 }
634    
635 root 1.4 =item $proc = $proc->send_arg ($string, ...)
636    
637     Send one or more argument strings to the process, to prepare a call to
638     C<run>. The strings can be any octet string.
639    
640 root 1.18 The protocol is optimised to pass a moderate number of relatively short
641     strings - while you can pass up to 4GB of data in one go, this is more
642     meant to pass some ID information or other startup info, not big chunks of
643     data.
644    
645 root 1.17 Returns the process object for easy chaining of method calls.
646 root 1.4
647     =cut
648 root 1.1
649 root 1.4 sub send_arg {
650     my ($self, @arg) = @_;
651 root 1.1
652 root 1.19 $self->_cmd (a => pack "(w/a*)*", @arg);
653 root 1.1
654     $self
655     }
656    
657 root 1.4 =item $proc->run ($func, $cb->($fh))
658    
659 root 1.23 Enter the function specified by the function name in C<$func> in the
660     process. The function is called with the communication socket as first
661 root 1.4 argument, followed by all file handles and string arguments sent earlier
662     via C<send_fh> and C<send_arg> methods, in the order they were called.
663    
664 root 1.23 The function name should be fully qualified, but if it isn't, it will be
665     looked up in the main package.
666 root 1.4
667 root 1.23 If the called function returns, doesn't exist, or any error occurs, the
668     process exits.
669 root 1.4
670 root 1.23 Preparing the process is done in the background - when all commands have
671     been sent, the callback is invoked with the local communications socket
672     as argument. At this point you can start using the socket in any way you
673     like.
674    
675     The process object becomes unusable on return from this function - any
676     further method calls result in undefined behaviour.
677 root 1.4
678     If the communication socket isn't used, it should be closed on both sides,
679     to save on kernel memory.
680    
681     The socket is non-blocking in the parent, and blocking in the newly
682 root 1.23 created process. The close-on-exec flag is set in both.
683    
684     Even if not used otherwise, the socket can be a good indicator for the
685     existence of the process - if the other process exits, you get a readable
686     event on it, because exiting the process closes the socket (if it didn't
687     create any children using fork).
688 root 1.4
689 root 1.9 Example: create a template for a process pool, pass a few strings, some
690     file handles, then fork, pass one more string, and run some code.
691    
692     my $pool = AnyEvent::Fork
693     ->new
694     ->send_arg ("str1", "str2")
695     ->send_fh ($fh1, $fh2);
696    
697     for (1..2) {
698     $pool
699     ->fork
700     ->send_arg ("str3")
701     ->run ("Some::function", sub {
702     my ($fh) = @_;
703    
704     # fh is nonblocking, but we trust that the OS can accept these
705 root 1.22 # few octets anyway.
706 root 1.9 syswrite $fh, "hi #$_\n";
707    
708     # $fh is being closed here, as we don't store it anywhere
709     });
710     }
711    
712     # Some::function might look like this - all parameters passed before fork
713     # and after will be passed, in order, after the communications socket.
714     sub Some::function {
715     my ($fh, $str1, $str2, $fh1, $fh2, $str3) = @_;
716    
717 root 1.22 print scalar <$fh>; # prints "hi #1\n" and "hi #2\n" in any order
718 root 1.9 }
719    
720 root 1.4 =cut
721    
722     sub run {
723     my ($self, $func, $cb) = @_;
724    
725 root 1.20 $self->[4] = $cb;
726 root 1.9 $self->_cmd (r => $func);
727 root 1.4 }
728    
729 root 1.1 =back
730    
731 root 1.16 =head1 PERFORMANCE
732    
733     Now for some unscientific benchmark numbers (all done on an amd64
734     GNU/Linux box). These are intended to give you an idea of the relative
735 root 1.18 performance you can expect, they are not meant to be absolute performance
736     numbers.
737 root 1.16
738 root 1.17 OK, so, I ran a simple benchmark that creates a socket pair, forks, calls
739 root 1.16 exit in the child and waits for the socket to close in the parent. I did
740 root 1.18 load AnyEvent, EV and AnyEvent::Fork, for a total process size of 5100kB.
741 root 1.16
742 root 1.18 2079 new processes per second, using manual socketpair + fork
743 root 1.16
744     Then I did the same thing, but instead of calling fork, I called
745     AnyEvent::Fork->new->run ("CORE::exit") and then again waited for the
746     socket form the child to close on exit. This does the same thing as manual
747 root 1.17 socket pair + fork, except that what is forked is the template process
748 root 1.16 (2440kB), and the socket needs to be passed to the server at the other end
749     of the socket first.
750    
751     2307 new processes per second, using AnyEvent::Fork->new
752    
753     And finally, using C<new_exec> instead C<new>, using vforks+execs to exec
754     a new perl interpreter and compile the small server each time, I get:
755    
756     479 vfork+execs per second, using AnyEvent::Fork->new_exec
757    
758 root 1.17 So how can C<< AnyEvent->new >> be faster than a standard fork, even
759     though it uses the same operations, but adds a lot of overhead?
760 root 1.16
761     The difference is simply the process size: forking the 6MB process takes
762     so much longer than forking the 2.5MB template process that the overhead
763     introduced is canceled out.
764    
765     If the benchmark process grows, the normal fork becomes even slower:
766    
767     1340 new processes, manual fork in a 20MB process
768     731 new processes, manual fork in a 200MB process
769     235 new processes, manual fork in a 2000MB process
770    
771 root 1.17 What that means (to me) is that I can use this module without having a
772     very bad conscience because of the extra overhead required to start new
773 root 1.16 processes.
774    
775 root 1.15 =head1 TYPICAL PROBLEMS
776    
777     This section lists typical problems that remain. I hope by recognising
778     them, most can be avoided.
779    
780     =over 4
781    
782     =item "leaked" file descriptors for exec'ed processes
783    
784     POSIX systems inherit file descriptors by default when exec'ing a new
785     process. While perl itself laudably sets the close-on-exec flags on new
786     file handles, most C libraries don't care, and even if all cared, it's
787     often not possible to set the flag in a race-free manner.
788    
789     That means some file descriptors can leak through. And since it isn't
790 root 1.17 possible to know which file descriptors are "good" and "necessary" (or
791     even to know which file descriptors are open), there is no good way to
792 root 1.15 close the ones that might harm.
793    
794     As an example of what "harm" can be done consider a web server that
795     accepts connections and afterwards some module uses AnyEvent::Fork for the
796     first time, causing it to fork and exec a new process, which might inherit
797     the network socket. When the server closes the socket, it is still open
798     in the child (which doesn't even know that) and the client might conclude
799     that the connection is still fine.
800    
801     For the main program, there are multiple remedies available -
802     L<AnyEvent::Fork::Early> is one, creating a process early and not using
803     C<new_exec> is another, as in both cases, the first process can be exec'ed
804     well before many random file descriptors are open.
805    
806     In general, the solution for these kind of problems is to fix the
807     libraries or the code that leaks those file descriptors.
808    
809 root 1.17 Fortunately, most of these leaked descriptors do no harm, other than
810 root 1.15 sitting on some resources.
811    
812     =item "leaked" file descriptors for fork'ed processes
813    
814     Normally, L<AnyEvent::Fork> does start new processes by exec'ing them,
815     which closes file descriptors not marked for being inherited.
816    
817     However, L<AnyEvent::Fork::Early> and L<AnyEvent::Fork::Template> offer
818     a way to create these processes by forking, and this leaks more file
819     descriptors than exec'ing them, as there is no way to mark descriptors as
820     "close on fork".
821    
822     An example would be modules like L<EV>, L<IO::AIO> or L<Gtk2>. Both create
823     pipes for internal uses, and L<Gtk2> might open a connection to the X
824     server. L<EV> and L<IO::AIO> can deal with fork, but Gtk2 might have
825     trouble with a fork.
826    
827     The solution is to either not load these modules before use'ing
828     L<AnyEvent::Fork::Early> or L<AnyEvent::Fork::Template>, or to delay
829     initialising them, for example, by calling C<init Gtk2> manually.
830    
831 root 1.19 =item exit runs destructors
832    
833     This only applies to users of Lc<AnyEvent::Fork:Early> and
834     L<AnyEvent::Fork::Template>.
835    
836     When a process created by AnyEvent::Fork exits, it might do so by calling
837     exit, or simply letting perl reach the end of the program. At which point
838     Perl runs all destructors.
839    
840     Not all destructors are fork-safe - for example, an object that represents
841     the connection to an X display might tell the X server to free resources,
842     which is inconvenient when the "real" object in the parent still needs to
843     use them.
844    
845     This is obviously not a problem for L<AnyEvent::Fork::Early>, as you used
846     it as the very first thing, right?
847    
848     It is a problem for L<AnyEvent::Fork::Template> though - and the solution
849     is to not create objects with nontrivial destructors that might have an
850     effect outside of Perl.
851    
852 root 1.15 =back
853    
854 root 1.8 =head1 PORTABILITY NOTES
855    
856 root 1.10 Native win32 perls are somewhat supported (AnyEvent::Fork::Early is a nop,
857     and ::Template is not going to work), and it cost a lot of blood and sweat
858     to make it so, mostly due to the bloody broken perl that nobody seems to
859     care about. The fork emulation is a bad joke - I have yet to see something
860 root 1.17 useful that you can do with it without running into memory corruption
861 root 1.10 issues or other braindamage. Hrrrr.
862    
863     Cygwin perl is not supported at the moment, as it should implement fd
864     passing, but doesn't, and rolling my own is hard, as cygwin doesn't
865     support enough functionality to do it.
866 root 1.8
867 root 1.13 =head1 SEE ALSO
868    
869     L<AnyEvent::Fork::Early> (to avoid executing a perl interpreter),
870     L<AnyEvent::Fork::Template> (to create a process by forking the main
871     program at a convenient time).
872    
873 root 1.1 =head1 AUTHOR
874    
875     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
876     http://home.schmorp.de/
877    
878     =cut
879    
880     1
881