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Revision: 1.1
Committed: Sat Oct 5 17:51:34 2013 UTC (10 years, 9 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
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# Content
1 NAME
2 Sys::FreezeThaw - stop and start all user processes on a machine
3
4 SYNOPSIS
5 use Sys::FreezeThaw;
6
7 Sys::FreezeThaw::freezethaw {
8 # run code while system is frozen
9 };
10
11 my $token = Sys::FreezeThaw::freeze;
12 ... do something ...
13 Sys::FreezeThaw::thaw $token;
14
15 DESCRIPTION
16 Operating Systems current supported: Linux-2.6.
17
18 This module implements a very specific feature: stopping(freezing and
19 thawing/continuing all user processes on the machine. It works by
20 sending SIGSTOP to all processes, parent-process first, so that the wait
21 syscall will not trigger on stopped children. Restarting is done in
22 reverse order.
23
24 Using the combined function Sys::FreezeThaw::freezethaw is recommended
25 as it will catch runtime errors, but stopping and restarting can be dine
26 via seperate function calls.
27
28 Sys::FreezeThaw::freezethaw { BLOCK }
29 First tries to stop all processes. If successful, runs the given
30 codeblock (or code reference), then restarts all processes again. As
31 the system is basically frozen during the codeblock execution, it
32 should be as fast as possible.
33
34 Runtime errors will be caught with "eval". If an exception occurs it
35 will be re-thrown after processes are restarted. If processes cannot
36 be frozen or restarted, this function will throw an exception.
37
38 Signal handlers for SIGPIPE, SIGHUP, SIGALRM, SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2
39 will temporarily be installed, so if you want to catch these, you
40 have to do so yourself within the executed codeblock.
41
42 Try to do as few things as possible. For example, outputting text
43 might cause a deadlock, as the terminal emulator on the other side
44 of STDOUT might be stopped, etc.
45
46 The return value of the codeblock is ignored right now, and the
47 function doesn't yet return anything sensible.
48
49 $token = Sys::FreezeThaw::freeze;
50 Send SIGSTOP to all processes, and return a token that allows them
51 to be thawed again.
52
53 If an error occurs, an exception will be thrown and all stopped
54 processes will automatically be thawed.
55
56 Sys::FreezeThaw::thaw $token
57 Take a token returned by Sys::FreezeThaw::freeze and send all
58 processes a CONT signal, in the order required for them not to
59 receive child STOP notifications.
60
61 BUGS
62 SIGCONT is not unnoticed by processes. Some programs (such as
63 irssi-text) respond by flickering (IMHO a bug in irssi-text). Other
64 programs might have other problems, but actual problems should be rare.
65 However, one shouldn't overuse this module.
66
67 AUTHOR
68 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
69 http://home.schmorp.de/
70