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Revision: 1.25
Committed: Sat Apr 6 08:55:16 2013 UTC (11 years, 3 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.24: +92 -64 lines
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# Content
1 =head1 NAME
2
3 AnyEvent::Fork - everything you wanted to use fork() for, but couldn't
4
5 =head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7 use AnyEvent::Fork;
8
9 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 =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 =head1 EXAMPLES
138
139 =head2 Create a single new process, tell it to run your worker function.
140
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 =head2 Create a pool of server processes all accepting on the same socket.
160
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 =head2 use AnyEvent::Fork as a faster fork+exec
195
196 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
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 = $cv->recv;
220
221 =head1 CONCEPTS
222
223 This module can create new processes either by executing a new perl
224 process, or by forking from an existing "template" process.
225
226 Each such process comes with its own file handle that can be used to
227 communicate with it (it's actually a socket - one end in the new process,
228 one end in the main process), and among the things you can do in it are
229 load modules, fork new processes, send file handles to it, and execute
230 functions.
231
232 There are multiple ways to create additional processes to execute some
233 jobs:
234
235 =over 4
236
237 =item fork a new process from the "default" template process, load code,
238 run it
239
240 This module has a "default" template process which it executes when it is
241 needed the first time. Forking from this process shares the memory used
242 for the perl interpreter with the new process, but loading modules takes
243 time, and the memory is not shared with anything else.
244
245 This is ideal for when you only need one extra process of a kind, with the
246 option of starting and stopping it on demand.
247
248 Example:
249
250 AnyEvent::Fork
251 ->new
252 ->require ("Some::Module")
253 ->run ("Some::Module::run", sub {
254 my ($fork_fh) = @_;
255 });
256
257 =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 only need a fixed number of processes you can create them, and then destroy
272 the template process.
273
274 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 $template around to fork new processes
285 # later, or you can destroy it, which causes it to vanish.
286
287 =item execute a new perl interpreter, load some code, run it
288
289 This is relatively slow, and doesn't allow you to share memory between
290 multiple processes.
291
292 The only advantage is that you don't have to have a template process
293 hanging around all the time to fork off some new processes, which might be
294 an advantage when there are long time spans where no extra processes are
295 needed.
296
297 Example:
298
299 AnyEvent::Fork
300 ->new_exec
301 ->require ("Some::Module")
302 ->run ("Some::Module::run", sub {
303 my ($fork_fh) = @_;
304 });
305
306 =back
307
308 =head1 FUNCTIONS
309
310 =over 4
311
312 =cut
313
314 package AnyEvent::Fork;
315
316 use common::sense;
317
318 use Errno ();
319
320 use AnyEvent;
321 use AnyEvent::Util ();
322
323 use IO::FDPass;
324
325 our $VERSION = 0.5;
326
327 our $PERL; # the path to the perl interpreter, deduces with various forms of magic
328
329 =item my $pool = new AnyEvent::Fork key => value...
330
331 Create a new process pool. The following named parameters are supported:
332
333 =over 4
334
335 =back
336
337 =cut
338
339 # the early fork template process
340 our $EARLY;
341
342 # the empty template process
343 our $TEMPLATE;
344
345 sub _cmd {
346 my $self = shift;
347
348 # 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 push @{ $self->[2] }, pack "a L/a*", $_[0], $_[1];
352
353 $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 }
365
366 shift @{ $self->[2] };
367
368 } 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
378 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 $self->[4]->($self->[1]) if $self->[4];
388 };
389
390 () # make sure we don't leak the watcher
391 }
392
393 sub _new {
394 my ($self, $fh, $pid) = @_;
395
396 AnyEvent::Util::fh_nonblocking $fh, 1;
397
398 $self = bless [
399 $pid,
400 $fh,
401 [], # write queue - strings or fd's
402 undef, # AE watcher
403 ], $self;
404
405 $self
406 }
407
408 # fork template from current process, used by AnyEvent::Fork::Early/Template
409 sub _new_fork {
410 my ($fh, $slave) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_socketpair;
411 my $parent = $$;
412
413 my $pid = fork;
414
415 if ($pid eq 0) {
416 require AnyEvent::Fork::Serve;
417 $AnyEvent::Fork::Serve::OWNER = $parent;
418 close $fh;
419 $0 = "$_[1] of $parent";
420 $SIG{CHLD} = 'IGNORE';
421 AnyEvent::Fork::Serve::serve ($slave);
422 exit 0;
423 } elsif (!$pid) {
424 die "AnyEvent::Fork::Early/Template: unable to fork template process: $!";
425 }
426
427 AnyEvent::Fork->_new ($fh, $pid)
428 }
429
430 =item my $proc = new AnyEvent::Fork
431
432 Create a new "empty" perl interpreter process and returns its process
433 object for further manipulation.
434
435 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 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 =cut
445
446 sub new {
447 my $class = shift;
448
449 $TEMPLATE ||= $class->new_exec;
450 $TEMPLATE->fork
451 }
452
453 =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
468 my ($fh, $slave) = AnyEvent::Util::portable_socketpair;
469
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 The path to the perl interpreter is divined using various methods - first
489 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 return $EARLY->fork
499 if $EARLY;
500
501 # 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 ($^O eq "MSWin32" || $perl =~ m%^/%)
508 && $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 # 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 # quick. also doesn't work in win32. of course. what did you expect
526 #local $ENV{PERL5LIB} = join ":", grep !ref, @INC;
527 my %env = %ENV;
528 $env{PERL5LIB} = join +($^O eq "MSWin32" ? ";" : ":"), grep !ref, @INC;
529
530 my $pid = Proc::FastSpawn::spawn (
531 $perl,
532 ["perl", "-MAnyEvent::Fork::Serve", "-e", "AnyEvent::Fork::Serve::me", fileno $slave, $$],
533 [map "$_=$env{$_}", keys %env],
534 ) or die "unable to spawn AnyEvent::Fork server: $!";
535
536 $self->_new ($fh, $pid)
537 }
538
539 =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 =item $proc = $proc->eval ($perlcode, @args)
558
559 Evaluates the given C<$perlcode> as ... perl code, while setting C<@_> to
560 the strings specified by C<@args>, in the "main" package.
561
562 This call is meant to do any custom initialisation that might be required
563 (for example, the C<require> method uses it). It's not supposed to be used
564 to completely take over the process, use C<run> for that.
565
566 The code will usually be executed after this call returns, and there is no
567 way to pass anything back to the calling process. Any evaluation errors
568 will be reported to stderr and cause the process to exit.
569
570 If you want to execute some code to take over the process (see the
571 "fork+exec" example in the SYNOPSIS), you should compile a function via
572 C<eval> first, and then call it via C<run>. This also gives you access to
573 any arguments passed via the C<send_xxx> methods, such as file handles.
574
575 Returns the process object for easy chaining of method calls.
576
577 =cut
578
579 sub eval {
580 my ($self, $code, @args) = @_;
581
582 $self->_cmd (e => pack "(w/a*)*", $code, @args);
583
584 $self
585 }
586
587 =item $proc = $proc->require ($module, ...)
588
589 Tries to load the given module(s) into the process
590
591 Returns the process object for easy chaining of method calls.
592
593 =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 =item $proc = $proc->send_fh ($handle, ...)
605
606 Send one or more file handles (I<not> file descriptors) to the process,
607 to prepare a call to C<run>.
608
609 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 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
619 $proc->send_fh ($my_fh);
620 undef $my_fh; # free the reference if you want, but DO NOT CLOSE IT
621
622 =cut
623
624 sub send_fh {
625 my ($self, @fh) = @_;
626
627 for my $fh (@fh) {
628 $self->_cmd ("h");
629 push @{ $self->[2] }, \$fh;
630 }
631
632 $self
633 }
634
635 =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 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 Returns the process object for easy chaining of method calls.
646
647 =cut
648
649 sub send_arg {
650 my ($self, @arg) = @_;
651
652 $self->_cmd (a => pack "(w/a*)*", @arg);
653
654 $self
655 }
656
657 =item $proc->run ($func, $cb->($fh))
658
659 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 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 The function name should be fully qualified, but if it isn't, it will be
665 looked up in the main package.
666
667 If the called function returns, doesn't exist, or any error occurs, the
668 process exits.
669
670 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
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 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
689 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 # few octets anyway.
706 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, $str3) = @_;
716
717 print scalar <$fh>; # prints "hi #1\n" and "hi #2\n" in any order
718 }
719
720 =cut
721
722 sub run {
723 my ($self, $func, $cb) = @_;
724
725 $self->[4] = $cb;
726 $self->_cmd (r => $func);
727 }
728
729 =back
730
731 =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 performance you can expect, they are not meant to be absolute performance
736 numbers.
737
738 OK, so, I ran a simple benchmark that creates a socket pair, forks, calls
739 exit in the child and waits for the socket to close in the parent. I did
740 load AnyEvent, EV and AnyEvent::Fork, for a total process size of 5100kB.
741
742 2079 new processes per second, using manual socketpair + fork
743
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 socket pair + fork, except that what is forked is the template process
748 (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 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
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 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 processes.
774
775 =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 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 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 Fortunately, most of these leaked descriptors do no harm, other than
810 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 =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 =back
853
854 =head1 PORTABILITY NOTES
855
856 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 useful that you can do with it without running into memory corruption
861 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
867 =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 =head1 AUTHOR
874
875 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
876 http://home.schmorp.de/
877
878 =cut
879
880 1
881