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1509 lines
55 KiB
1509 lines
55 KiB
=head1 NAME
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perlipc - Perl interprocess communication (signals, fifos, pipes, safe subprocesses, sockets, and semaphores)
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=head1 DESCRIPTION
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The basic IPC facilities of Perl are built out of the good old Unix
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signals, named pipes, pipe opens, the Berkeley socket routines, and SysV
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IPC calls. Each is used in slightly different situations.
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=head1 Signals
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Perl uses a simple signal handling model: the %SIG hash contains names or
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references of user-installed signal handlers. These handlers will be called
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with an argument which is the name of the signal that triggered it. A
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signal may be generated intentionally from a particular keyboard sequence like
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control-C or control-Z, sent to you from another process, or
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triggered automatically by the kernel when special events transpire, like
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a child process exiting, your process running out of stack space, or
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hitting file size limit.
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For example, to trap an interrupt signal, set up a handler like this.
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Do as little as you possibly can in your handler; notice how all we do is
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set a global variable and then raise an exception. That's because on most
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systems, libraries are not re-entrant; particularly, memory allocation and
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I/O routines are not. That means that doing nearly I<anything> in your
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handler could in theory trigger a memory fault and subsequent core dump.
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sub catch_zap {
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my $signame = shift;
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$shucks++;
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die "Somebody sent me a SIG$signame";
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}
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$SIG{INT} = 'catch_zap'; # could fail in modules
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$SIG{INT} = \&catch_zap; # best strategy
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The names of the signals are the ones listed out by C<kill -l> on your
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system, or you can retrieve them from the Config module. Set up an
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@signame list indexed by number to get the name and a %signo table
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indexed by name to get the number:
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use Config;
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defined $Config{sig_name} || die "No sigs?";
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foreach $name (split(' ', $Config{sig_name})) {
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$signo{$name} = $i;
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$signame[$i] = $name;
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$i++;
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}
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So to check whether signal 17 and SIGALRM were the same, do just this:
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print "signal #17 = $signame[17]\n";
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if ($signo{ALRM}) {
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print "SIGALRM is $signo{ALRM}\n";
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}
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You may also choose to assign the strings C<'IGNORE'> or C<'DEFAULT'> as
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the handler, in which case Perl will try to discard the signal or do the
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default thing.
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On most Unix platforms, the C<CHLD> (sometimes also known as C<CLD>) signal
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has special behavior with respect to a value of C<'IGNORE'>.
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Setting C<$SIG{CHLD}> to C<'IGNORE'> on such a platform has the effect of
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not creating zombie processes when the parent process fails to C<wait()>
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on its child processes (i.e. child processes are automatically reaped).
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Calling C<wait()> with C<$SIG{CHLD}> set to C<'IGNORE'> usually returns
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C<-1> on such platforms.
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Some signals can be neither trapped nor ignored, such as
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the KILL and STOP (but not the TSTP) signals. One strategy for
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temporarily ignoring signals is to use a local() statement, which will be
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automatically restored once your block is exited. (Remember that local()
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values are "inherited" by functions called from within that block.)
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sub precious {
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local $SIG{INT} = 'IGNORE';
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&more_functions;
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}
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sub more_functions {
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# interrupts still ignored, for now...
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}
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Sending a signal to a negative process ID means that you send the signal
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to the entire Unix process-group. This code sends a hang-up signal to all
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processes in the current process group (and sets $SIG{HUP} to IGNORE so
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it doesn't kill itself):
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{
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local $SIG{HUP} = 'IGNORE';
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kill HUP => -$$;
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# snazzy writing of: kill('HUP', -$$)
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}
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Another interesting signal to send is signal number zero. This doesn't
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actually affect another process, but instead checks whether it's alive
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or has changed its UID.
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unless (kill 0 => $kid_pid) {
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warn "something wicked happened to $kid_pid";
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}
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You might also want to employ anonymous functions for simple signal
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handlers:
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$SIG{INT} = sub { die "\nOutta here!\n" };
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But that will be problematic for the more complicated handlers that need
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to reinstall themselves. Because Perl's signal mechanism is currently
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based on the signal(3) function from the C library, you may sometimes be so
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misfortunate as to run on systems where that function is "broken", that
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is, it behaves in the old unreliable SysV way rather than the newer, more
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reasonable BSD and POSIX fashion. So you'll see defensive people writing
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signal handlers like this:
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sub REAPER {
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$waitedpid = wait;
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# loathe sysV: it makes us not only reinstate
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# the handler, but place it after the wait
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$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
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}
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$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
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# now do something that forks...
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or even the more elaborate:
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use POSIX ":sys_wait_h";
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sub REAPER {
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my $child;
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while (($child = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) > 0) {
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$Kid_Status{$child} = $?;
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}
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$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # still loathe sysV
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}
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$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
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# do something that forks...
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Signal handling is also used for timeouts in Unix, While safely
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protected within an C<eval{}> block, you set a signal handler to trap
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alarm signals and then schedule to have one delivered to you in some
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number of seconds. Then try your blocking operation, clearing the alarm
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when it's done but not before you've exited your C<eval{}> block. If it
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goes off, you'll use die() to jump out of the block, much as you might
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using longjmp() or throw() in other languages.
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Here's an example:
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eval {
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local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "alarm clock restart" };
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alarm 10;
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flock(FH, 2); # blocking write lock
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alarm 0;
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};
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if ($@ and $@ !~ /alarm clock restart/) { die }
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If the operation being timed out is system() or qx(), this technique
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is liable to generate zombies. If this matters to you, you'll
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need to do your own fork() and exec(), and kill the errant child process.
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For more complex signal handling, you might see the standard POSIX
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module. Lamentably, this is almost entirely undocumented, but
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the F<t/lib/posix.t> file from the Perl source distribution has some
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examples in it.
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=head1 Named Pipes
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A named pipe (often referred to as a FIFO) is an old Unix IPC
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mechanism for processes communicating on the same machine. It works
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just like a regular, connected anonymous pipes, except that the
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processes rendezvous using a filename and don't have to be related.
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To create a named pipe, use the Unix command mknod(1) or on some
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systems, mkfifo(1). These may not be in your normal path.
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# system return val is backwards, so && not ||
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#
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$ENV{PATH} .= ":/etc:/usr/etc";
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if ( system('mknod', $path, 'p')
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&& system('mkfifo', $path) )
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{
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die "mk{nod,fifo} $path failed";
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}
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A fifo is convenient when you want to connect a process to an unrelated
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one. When you open a fifo, the program will block until there's something
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on the other end.
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For example, let's say you'd like to have your F<.signature> file be a
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named pipe that has a Perl program on the other end. Now every time any
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program (like a mailer, news reader, finger program, etc.) tries to read
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from that file, the reading program will block and your program will
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supply the new signature. We'll use the pipe-checking file test B<-p>
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to find out whether anyone (or anything) has accidentally removed our fifo.
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chdir; # go home
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$FIFO = '.signature';
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$ENV{PATH} .= ":/etc:/usr/games";
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while (1) {
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unless (-p $FIFO) {
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unlink $FIFO;
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system('mknod', $FIFO, 'p')
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&& die "can't mknod $FIFO: $!";
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}
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# next line blocks until there's a reader
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open (FIFO, "> $FIFO") || die "can't write $FIFO: $!";
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print FIFO "John Smith (smith\@host.org)\n", `fortune -s`;
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close FIFO;
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sleep 2; # to avoid dup signals
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}
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=head2 WARNING
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By installing Perl code to deal with signals, you're exposing yourself
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to danger from two things. First, few system library functions are
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re-entrant. If the signal interrupts while Perl is executing one function
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(like malloc(3) or printf(3)), and your signal handler then calls the
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same function again, you could get unpredictable behavior--often, a
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core dump. Second, Perl isn't itself re-entrant at the lowest levels.
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If the signal interrupts Perl while Perl is changing its own internal
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data structures, similarly unpredictable behaviour may result.
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There are two things you can do, knowing this: be paranoid or be
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pragmatic. The paranoid approach is to do as little as possible in your
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signal handler. Set an existing integer variable that already has a
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value, and return. This doesn't help you if you're in a slow system call,
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which will just restart. That means you have to C<die> to longjump(3) out
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of the handler. Even this is a little cavalier for the true paranoiac,
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who avoids C<die> in a handler because the system I<is> out to get you.
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The pragmatic approach is to say ``I know the risks, but prefer the
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convenience'', and to do anything you want in your signal handler,
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prepared to clean up core dumps now and again.
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To forbid signal handlers altogether would bars you from
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many interesting programs, including virtually everything in this manpage,
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since you could no longer even write SIGCHLD handlers.
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=head1 Using open() for IPC
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Perl's basic open() statement can also be used for unidirectional interprocess
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communication by either appending or prepending a pipe symbol to the second
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argument to open(). Here's how to start something up in a child process you
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intend to write to:
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open(SPOOLER, "| cat -v | lpr -h 2>/dev/null")
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|| die "can't fork: $!";
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local $SIG{PIPE} = sub { die "spooler pipe broke" };
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print SPOOLER "stuff\n";
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close SPOOLER || die "bad spool: $! $?";
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And here's how to start up a child process you intend to read from:
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open(STATUS, "netstat -an 2>&1 |")
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|| die "can't fork: $!";
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while (<STATUS>) {
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next if /^(tcp|udp)/;
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print;
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}
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close STATUS || die "bad netstat: $! $?";
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If one can be sure that a particular program is a Perl script that is
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expecting filenames in @ARGV, the clever programmer can write something
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like this:
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% program f1 "cmd1|" - f2 "cmd2|" f3 < tmpfile
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and irrespective of which shell it's called from, the Perl program will
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read from the file F<f1>, the process F<cmd1>, standard input (F<tmpfile>
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in this case), the F<f2> file, the F<cmd2> command, and finally the F<f3>
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file. Pretty nifty, eh?
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You might notice that you could use backticks for much the
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same effect as opening a pipe for reading:
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print grep { !/^(tcp|udp)/ } `netstat -an 2>&1`;
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die "bad netstat" if $?;
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While this is true on the surface, it's much more efficient to process the
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file one line or record at a time because then you don't have to read the
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whole thing into memory at once. It also gives you finer control of the
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whole process, letting you to kill off the child process early if you'd
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like.
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Be careful to check both the open() and the close() return values. If
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you're I<writing> to a pipe, you should also trap SIGPIPE. Otherwise,
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think of what happens when you start up a pipe to a command that doesn't
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exist: the open() will in all likelihood succeed (it only reflects the
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fork()'s success), but then your output will fail--spectacularly. Perl
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can't know whether the command worked because your command is actually
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running in a separate process whose exec() might have failed. Therefore,
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while readers of bogus commands return just a quick end of file, writers
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to bogus command will trigger a signal they'd better be prepared to
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handle. Consider:
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open(FH, "|bogus") or die "can't fork: $!";
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print FH "bang\n" or die "can't write: $!";
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close FH or die "can't close: $!";
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That won't blow up until the close, and it will blow up with a SIGPIPE.
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To catch it, you could use this:
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$SIG{PIPE} = 'IGNORE';
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open(FH, "|bogus") or die "can't fork: $!";
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print FH "bang\n" or die "can't write: $!";
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close FH or die "can't close: status=$?";
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=head2 Filehandles
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Both the main process and any child processes it forks share the same
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STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR filehandles. If both processes try to access
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them at once, strange things can happen. You may also want to close
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or reopen the filehandles for the child. You can get around this by
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opening your pipe with open(), but on some systems this means that the
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child process cannot outlive the parent.
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=head2 Background Processes
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You can run a command in the background with:
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system("cmd &");
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The command's STDOUT and STDERR (and possibly STDIN, depending on your
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shell) will be the same as the parent's. You won't need to catch
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SIGCHLD because of the double-fork taking place (see below for more
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details).
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=head2 Complete Dissociation of Child from Parent
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In some cases (starting server processes, for instance) you'll want to
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completely dissociate the child process from the parent. This is
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often called daemonization. A well behaved daemon will also chdir()
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to the root directory (so it doesn't prevent unmounting the filesystem
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containing the directory from which it was launched) and redirect its
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standard file descriptors from and to F</dev/null> (so that random
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output doesn't wind up on the user's terminal).
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use POSIX 'setsid';
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sub daemonize {
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chdir '/' or die "Can't chdir to /: $!";
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open STDIN, '/dev/null' or die "Can't read /dev/null: $!";
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open STDOUT, '>/dev/null'
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or die "Can't write to /dev/null: $!";
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defined(my $pid = fork) or die "Can't fork: $!";
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exit if $pid;
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setsid or die "Can't start a new session: $!";
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open STDERR, '>&STDOUT' or die "Can't dup stdout: $!";
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}
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The fork() has to come before the setsid() to ensure that you aren't a
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process group leader (the setsid() will fail if you are). If your
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system doesn't have the setsid() function, open F</dev/tty> and use the
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C<TIOCNOTTY> ioctl() on it instead. See L<tty(4)> for details.
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Non-Unix users should check their Your_OS::Process module for other
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solutions.
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=head2 Safe Pipe Opens
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Another interesting approach to IPC is making your single program go
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multiprocess and communicate between (or even amongst) yourselves. The
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open() function will accept a file argument of either C<"-|"> or C<"|-">
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to do a very interesting thing: it forks a child connected to the
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filehandle you've opened. The child is running the same program as the
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parent. This is useful for safely opening a file when running under an
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assumed UID or GID, for example. If you open a pipe I<to> minus, you can
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write to the filehandle you opened and your kid will find it in his
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STDIN. If you open a pipe I<from> minus, you can read from the filehandle
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you opened whatever your kid writes to his STDOUT.
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use English;
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my $sleep_count = 0;
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do {
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$pid = open(KID_TO_WRITE, "|-");
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unless (defined $pid) {
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warn "cannot fork: $!";
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die "bailing out" if $sleep_count++ > 6;
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sleep 10;
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}
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} until defined $pid;
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if ($pid) { # parent
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print KID_TO_WRITE @some_data;
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close(KID_TO_WRITE) || warn "kid exited $?";
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} else { # child
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($EUID, $EGID) = ($UID, $GID); # suid progs only
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open (FILE, "> /safe/file")
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|| die "can't open /safe/file: $!";
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while (<STDIN>) {
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print FILE; # child's STDIN is parent's KID
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}
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exit; # don't forget this
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}
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Another common use for this construct is when you need to execute
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something without the shell's interference. With system(), it's
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straightforward, but you can't use a pipe open or backticks safely.
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That's because there's no way to stop the shell from getting its hands on
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your arguments. Instead, use lower-level control to call exec() directly.
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Here's a safe backtick or pipe open for read:
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# add error processing as above
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$pid = open(KID_TO_READ, "-|");
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if ($pid) { # parent
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while (<KID_TO_READ>) {
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# do something interesting
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}
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close(KID_TO_READ) || warn "kid exited $?";
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} else { # child
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($EUID, $EGID) = ($UID, $GID); # suid only
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exec($program, @options, @args)
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|| die "can't exec program: $!";
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# NOTREACHED
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}
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And here's a safe pipe open for writing:
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# add error processing as above
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$pid = open(KID_TO_WRITE, "|-");
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$SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "whoops, $program pipe broke" };
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if ($pid) { # parent
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for (@data) {
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print KID_TO_WRITE;
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}
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close(KID_TO_WRITE) || warn "kid exited $?";
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} else { # child
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($EUID, $EGID) = ($UID, $GID);
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exec($program, @options, @args)
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|| die "can't exec program: $!";
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# NOTREACHED
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}
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Note that these operations are full Unix forks, which means they may not be
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correctly implemented on alien systems. Additionally, these are not true
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multithreading. If you'd like to learn more about threading, see the
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F<modules> file mentioned below in the SEE ALSO section.
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=head2 Bidirectional Communication with Another Process
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|
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While this works reasonably well for unidirectional communication, what
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about bidirectional communication? The obvious thing you'd like to do
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|
doesn't actually work:
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open(PROG_FOR_READING_AND_WRITING, "| some program |")
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and if you forget to use the C<use warnings> pragma or the B<-w> flag,
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then you'll miss out entirely on the diagnostic message:
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Can't do bidirectional pipe at -e line 1.
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|
If you really want to, you can use the standard open2() library function
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to catch both ends. There's also an open3() for tridirectional I/O so you
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can also catch your child's STDERR, but doing so would then require an
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awkward select() loop and wouldn't allow you to use normal Perl input
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operations.
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If you look at its source, you'll see that open2() uses low-level
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primitives like Unix pipe() and exec() calls to create all the connections.
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|
While it might have been slightly more efficient by using socketpair(), it
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|
would have then been even less portable than it already is. The open2()
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|
and open3() functions are unlikely to work anywhere except on a Unix
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system or some other one purporting to be POSIX compliant.
|
|
|
|
Here's an example of using open2():
|
|
|
|
use FileHandle;
|
|
use IPC::Open2;
|
|
$pid = open2(*Reader, *Writer, "cat -u -n" );
|
|
print Writer "stuff\n";
|
|
$got = <Reader>;
|
|
|
|
The problem with this is that Unix buffering is really going to
|
|
ruin your day. Even though your C<Writer> filehandle is auto-flushed,
|
|
and the process on the other end will get your data in a timely manner,
|
|
you can't usually do anything to force it to give it back to you
|
|
in a similarly quick fashion. In this case, we could, because we
|
|
gave I<cat> a B<-u> flag to make it unbuffered. But very few Unix
|
|
commands are designed to operate over pipes, so this seldom works
|
|
unless you yourself wrote the program on the other end of the
|
|
double-ended pipe.
|
|
|
|
A solution to this is the nonstandard F<Comm.pl> library. It uses
|
|
pseudo-ttys to make your program behave more reasonably:
|
|
|
|
require 'Comm.pl';
|
|
$ph = open_proc('cat -n');
|
|
for (1..10) {
|
|
print $ph "a line\n";
|
|
print "got back ", scalar <$ph>;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
This way you don't have to have control over the source code of the
|
|
program you're using. The F<Comm> library also has expect()
|
|
and interact() functions. Find the library (and we hope its
|
|
successor F<IPC::Chat>) at your nearest CPAN archive as detailed
|
|
in the SEE ALSO section below.
|
|
|
|
The newer Expect.pm module from CPAN also addresses this kind of thing.
|
|
This module requires two other modules from CPAN: IO::Pty and IO::Stty.
|
|
It sets up a pseudo-terminal to interact with programs that insist on
|
|
using talking to the terminal device driver. If your system is
|
|
amongst those supported, this may be your best bet.
|
|
|
|
=head2 Bidirectional Communication with Yourself
|
|
|
|
If you want, you may make low-level pipe() and fork()
|
|
to stitch this together by hand. This example only
|
|
talks to itself, but you could reopen the appropriate
|
|
handles to STDIN and STDOUT and call other processes.
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
# pipe1 - bidirectional communication using two pipe pairs
|
|
# designed for the socketpair-challenged
|
|
use IO::Handle; # thousands of lines just for autoflush :-(
|
|
pipe(PARENT_RDR, CHILD_WTR); # XXX: failure?
|
|
pipe(CHILD_RDR, PARENT_WTR); # XXX: failure?
|
|
CHILD_WTR->autoflush(1);
|
|
PARENT_WTR->autoflush(1);
|
|
|
|
if ($pid = fork) {
|
|
close PARENT_RDR; close PARENT_WTR;
|
|
print CHILD_WTR "Parent Pid $$ is sending this\n";
|
|
chomp($line = <CHILD_RDR>);
|
|
print "Parent Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n";
|
|
close CHILD_RDR; close CHILD_WTR;
|
|
waitpid($pid,0);
|
|
} else {
|
|
die "cannot fork: $!" unless defined $pid;
|
|
close CHILD_RDR; close CHILD_WTR;
|
|
chomp($line = <PARENT_RDR>);
|
|
print "Child Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n";
|
|
print PARENT_WTR "Child Pid $$ is sending this\n";
|
|
close PARENT_RDR; close PARENT_WTR;
|
|
exit;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
But you don't actually have to make two pipe calls. If you
|
|
have the socketpair() system call, it will do this all for you.
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
# pipe2 - bidirectional communication using socketpair
|
|
# "the best ones always go both ways"
|
|
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
use IO::Handle; # thousands of lines just for autoflush :-(
|
|
# We say AF_UNIX because although *_LOCAL is the
|
|
# POSIX 1003.1g form of the constant, many machines
|
|
# still don't have it.
|
|
socketpair(CHILD, PARENT, AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, PF_UNSPEC)
|
|
or die "socketpair: $!";
|
|
|
|
CHILD->autoflush(1);
|
|
PARENT->autoflush(1);
|
|
|
|
if ($pid = fork) {
|
|
close PARENT;
|
|
print CHILD "Parent Pid $$ is sending this\n";
|
|
chomp($line = <CHILD>);
|
|
print "Parent Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n";
|
|
close CHILD;
|
|
waitpid($pid,0);
|
|
} else {
|
|
die "cannot fork: $!" unless defined $pid;
|
|
close CHILD;
|
|
chomp($line = <PARENT>);
|
|
print "Child Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n";
|
|
print PARENT "Child Pid $$ is sending this\n";
|
|
close PARENT;
|
|
exit;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
=head1 Sockets: Client/Server Communication
|
|
|
|
While not limited to Unix-derived operating systems (e.g., WinSock on PCs
|
|
provides socket support, as do some VMS libraries), you may not have
|
|
sockets on your system, in which case this section probably isn't going to do
|
|
you much good. With sockets, you can do both virtual circuits (i.e., TCP
|
|
streams) and datagrams (i.e., UDP packets). You may be able to do even more
|
|
depending on your system.
|
|
|
|
The Perl function calls for dealing with sockets have the same names as
|
|
the corresponding system calls in C, but their arguments tend to differ
|
|
for two reasons: first, Perl filehandles work differently than C file
|
|
descriptors. Second, Perl already knows the length of its strings, so you
|
|
don't need to pass that information.
|
|
|
|
One of the major problems with old socket code in Perl was that it used
|
|
hard-coded values for some of the constants, which severely hurt
|
|
portability. If you ever see code that does anything like explicitly
|
|
setting C<$AF_INET = 2>, you know you're in for big trouble: An
|
|
immeasurably superior approach is to use the C<Socket> module, which more
|
|
reliably grants access to various constants and functions you'll need.
|
|
|
|
If you're not writing a server/client for an existing protocol like
|
|
NNTP or SMTP, you should give some thought to how your server will
|
|
know when the client has finished talking, and vice-versa. Most
|
|
protocols are based on one-line messages and responses (so one party
|
|
knows the other has finished when a "\n" is received) or multi-line
|
|
messages and responses that end with a period on an empty line
|
|
("\n.\n" terminates a message/response).
|
|
|
|
=head2 Internet Line Terminators
|
|
|
|
The Internet line terminator is "\015\012". Under ASCII variants of
|
|
Unix, that could usually be written as "\r\n", but under other systems,
|
|
"\r\n" might at times be "\015\015\012", "\012\012\015", or something
|
|
completely different. The standards specify writing "\015\012" to be
|
|
conformant (be strict in what you provide), but they also recommend
|
|
accepting a lone "\012" on input (but be lenient in what you require).
|
|
We haven't always been very good about that in the code in this manpage,
|
|
but unless you're on a Mac, you'll probably be ok.
|
|
|
|
=head2 Internet TCP Clients and Servers
|
|
|
|
Use Internet-domain sockets when you want to do client-server
|
|
communication that might extend to machines outside of your own system.
|
|
|
|
Here's a sample TCP client using Internet-domain sockets:
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
use strict;
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
my ($remote,$port, $iaddr, $paddr, $proto, $line);
|
|
|
|
$remote = shift || 'localhost';
|
|
$port = shift || 2345; # random port
|
|
if ($port =~ /\D/) { $port = getservbyname($port, 'tcp') }
|
|
die "No port" unless $port;
|
|
$iaddr = inet_aton($remote) || die "no host: $remote";
|
|
$paddr = sockaddr_in($port, $iaddr);
|
|
|
|
$proto = getprotobyname('tcp');
|
|
socket(SOCK, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!";
|
|
connect(SOCK, $paddr) || die "connect: $!";
|
|
while (defined($line = <SOCK>)) {
|
|
print $line;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
close (SOCK) || die "close: $!";
|
|
exit;
|
|
|
|
And here's a corresponding server to go along with it. We'll
|
|
leave the address as INADDR_ANY so that the kernel can choose
|
|
the appropriate interface on multihomed hosts. If you want sit
|
|
on a particular interface (like the external side of a gateway
|
|
or firewall machine), you should fill this in with your real address
|
|
instead.
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
|
|
use strict;
|
|
BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' }
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
use Carp;
|
|
my $EOL = "\015\012";
|
|
|
|
sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" }
|
|
|
|
my $port = shift || 2345;
|
|
my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp');
|
|
|
|
($port) = $port =~ /^(\d+)$/ or die "invalid port";
|
|
|
|
socket(Server, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!";
|
|
setsockopt(Server, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR,
|
|
pack("l", 1)) || die "setsockopt: $!";
|
|
bind(Server, sockaddr_in($port, INADDR_ANY)) || die "bind: $!";
|
|
listen(Server,SOMAXCONN) || die "listen: $!";
|
|
|
|
logmsg "server started on port $port";
|
|
|
|
my $paddr;
|
|
|
|
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
|
|
|
|
for ( ; $paddr = accept(Client,Server); close Client) {
|
|
my($port,$iaddr) = sockaddr_in($paddr);
|
|
my $name = gethostbyaddr($iaddr,AF_INET);
|
|
|
|
logmsg "connection from $name [",
|
|
inet_ntoa($iaddr), "]
|
|
at port $port";
|
|
|
|
print Client "Hello there, $name, it's now ",
|
|
scalar localtime, $EOL;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
And here's a multithreaded version. It's multithreaded in that
|
|
like most typical servers, it spawns (forks) a slave server to
|
|
handle the client request so that the master server can quickly
|
|
go back to service a new client.
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
|
|
use strict;
|
|
BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' }
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
use Carp;
|
|
my $EOL = "\015\012";
|
|
|
|
sub spawn; # forward declaration
|
|
sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" }
|
|
|
|
my $port = shift || 2345;
|
|
my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp');
|
|
|
|
($port) = $port =~ /^(\d+)$/ or die "invalid port";
|
|
|
|
socket(Server, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!";
|
|
setsockopt(Server, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR,
|
|
pack("l", 1)) || die "setsockopt: $!";
|
|
bind(Server, sockaddr_in($port, INADDR_ANY)) || die "bind: $!";
|
|
listen(Server,SOMAXCONN) || die "listen: $!";
|
|
|
|
logmsg "server started on port $port";
|
|
|
|
my $waitedpid = 0;
|
|
my $paddr;
|
|
|
|
sub REAPER {
|
|
$waitedpid = wait;
|
|
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # loathe sysV
|
|
logmsg "reaped $waitedpid" . ($? ? " with exit $?" : '');
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
|
|
|
|
for ( $waitedpid = 0;
|
|
($paddr = accept(Client,Server)) || $waitedpid;
|
|
$waitedpid = 0, close Client)
|
|
{
|
|
next if $waitedpid and not $paddr;
|
|
my($port,$iaddr) = sockaddr_in($paddr);
|
|
my $name = gethostbyaddr($iaddr,AF_INET);
|
|
|
|
logmsg "connection from $name [",
|
|
inet_ntoa($iaddr), "]
|
|
at port $port";
|
|
|
|
spawn sub {
|
|
$|=1;
|
|
print "Hello there, $name, it's now ", scalar localtime, $EOL;
|
|
exec '/usr/games/fortune' # XXX: `wrong' line terminators
|
|
or confess "can't exec fortune: $!";
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
sub spawn {
|
|
my $coderef = shift;
|
|
|
|
unless (@_ == 0 && $coderef && ref($coderef) eq 'CODE') {
|
|
confess "usage: spawn CODEREF";
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
my $pid;
|
|
if (!defined($pid = fork)) {
|
|
logmsg "cannot fork: $!";
|
|
return;
|
|
} elsif ($pid) {
|
|
logmsg "begat $pid";
|
|
return; # I'm the parent
|
|
}
|
|
# else I'm the child -- go spawn
|
|
|
|
open(STDIN, "<&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdin";
|
|
open(STDOUT, ">&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdout";
|
|
## open(STDERR, ">&STDOUT") || die "can't dup stdout to stderr";
|
|
exit &$coderef();
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
This server takes the trouble to clone off a child version via fork() for
|
|
each incoming request. That way it can handle many requests at once,
|
|
which you might not always want. Even if you don't fork(), the listen()
|
|
will allow that many pending connections. Forking servers have to be
|
|
particularly careful about cleaning up their dead children (called
|
|
"zombies" in Unix parlance), because otherwise you'll quickly fill up your
|
|
process table.
|
|
|
|
We suggest that you use the B<-T> flag to use taint checking (see L<perlsec>)
|
|
even if we aren't running setuid or setgid. This is always a good idea
|
|
for servers and other programs run on behalf of someone else (like CGI
|
|
scripts), because it lessens the chances that people from the outside will
|
|
be able to compromise your system.
|
|
|
|
Let's look at another TCP client. This one connects to the TCP "time"
|
|
service on a number of different machines and shows how far their clocks
|
|
differ from the system on which it's being run:
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
use strict;
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
|
|
my $SECS_of_70_YEARS = 2208988800;
|
|
sub ctime { scalar localtime(shift) }
|
|
|
|
my $iaddr = gethostbyname('localhost');
|
|
my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp');
|
|
my $port = getservbyname('time', 'tcp');
|
|
my $paddr = sockaddr_in(0, $iaddr);
|
|
my($host);
|
|
|
|
$| = 1;
|
|
printf "%-24s %8s %s\n", "localhost", 0, ctime(time());
|
|
|
|
foreach $host (@ARGV) {
|
|
printf "%-24s ", $host;
|
|
my $hisiaddr = inet_aton($host) || die "unknown host";
|
|
my $hispaddr = sockaddr_in($port, $hisiaddr);
|
|
socket(SOCKET, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!";
|
|
connect(SOCKET, $hispaddr) || die "bind: $!";
|
|
my $rtime = ' ';
|
|
read(SOCKET, $rtime, 4);
|
|
close(SOCKET);
|
|
my $histime = unpack("N", $rtime) - $SECS_of_70_YEARS ;
|
|
printf "%8d %s\n", $histime - time, ctime($histime);
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
=head2 Unix-Domain TCP Clients and Servers
|
|
|
|
That's fine for Internet-domain clients and servers, but what about local
|
|
communications? While you can use the same setup, sometimes you don't
|
|
want to. Unix-domain sockets are local to the current host, and are often
|
|
used internally to implement pipes. Unlike Internet domain sockets, Unix
|
|
domain sockets can show up in the file system with an ls(1) listing.
|
|
|
|
% ls -l /dev/log
|
|
srw-rw-rw- 1 root 0 Oct 31 07:23 /dev/log
|
|
|
|
You can test for these with Perl's B<-S> file test:
|
|
|
|
unless ( -S '/dev/log' ) {
|
|
die "something's wicked with the log system";
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
Here's a sample Unix-domain client:
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
use strict;
|
|
my ($rendezvous, $line);
|
|
|
|
$rendezvous = shift || '/tmp/catsock';
|
|
socket(SOCK, PF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0) || die "socket: $!";
|
|
connect(SOCK, sockaddr_un($rendezvous)) || die "connect: $!";
|
|
while (defined($line = <SOCK>)) {
|
|
print $line;
|
|
}
|
|
exit;
|
|
|
|
And here's a corresponding server. You don't have to worry about silly
|
|
network terminators here because Unix domain sockets are guaranteed
|
|
to be on the localhost, and thus everything works right.
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
|
|
use strict;
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
use Carp;
|
|
|
|
BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' }
|
|
sub spawn; # forward declaration
|
|
sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" }
|
|
|
|
my $NAME = '/tmp/catsock';
|
|
my $uaddr = sockaddr_un($NAME);
|
|
my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp');
|
|
|
|
socket(Server,PF_UNIX,SOCK_STREAM,0) || die "socket: $!";
|
|
unlink($NAME);
|
|
bind (Server, $uaddr) || die "bind: $!";
|
|
listen(Server,SOMAXCONN) || die "listen: $!";
|
|
|
|
logmsg "server started on $NAME";
|
|
|
|
my $waitedpid;
|
|
|
|
sub REAPER {
|
|
$waitedpid = wait;
|
|
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # loathe sysV
|
|
logmsg "reaped $waitedpid" . ($? ? " with exit $?" : '');
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
$SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
|
|
|
|
|
|
for ( $waitedpid = 0;
|
|
accept(Client,Server) || $waitedpid;
|
|
$waitedpid = 0, close Client)
|
|
{
|
|
next if $waitedpid;
|
|
logmsg "connection on $NAME";
|
|
spawn sub {
|
|
print "Hello there, it's now ", scalar localtime, "\n";
|
|
exec '/usr/games/fortune' or die "can't exec fortune: $!";
|
|
};
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
sub spawn {
|
|
my $coderef = shift;
|
|
|
|
unless (@_ == 0 && $coderef && ref($coderef) eq 'CODE') {
|
|
confess "usage: spawn CODEREF";
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
my $pid;
|
|
if (!defined($pid = fork)) {
|
|
logmsg "cannot fork: $!";
|
|
return;
|
|
} elsif ($pid) {
|
|
logmsg "begat $pid";
|
|
return; # I'm the parent
|
|
}
|
|
# else I'm the child -- go spawn
|
|
|
|
open(STDIN, "<&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdin";
|
|
open(STDOUT, ">&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdout";
|
|
## open(STDERR, ">&STDOUT") || die "can't dup stdout to stderr";
|
|
exit &$coderef();
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
As you see, it's remarkably similar to the Internet domain TCP server, so
|
|
much so, in fact, that we've omitted several duplicate functions--spawn(),
|
|
logmsg(), ctime(), and REAPER()--which are exactly the same as in the
|
|
other server.
|
|
|
|
So why would you ever want to use a Unix domain socket instead of a
|
|
simpler named pipe? Because a named pipe doesn't give you sessions. You
|
|
can't tell one process's data from another's. With socket programming,
|
|
you get a separate session for each client: that's why accept() takes two
|
|
arguments.
|
|
|
|
For example, let's say that you have a long running database server daemon
|
|
that you want folks from the World Wide Web to be able to access, but only
|
|
if they go through a CGI interface. You'd have a small, simple CGI
|
|
program that does whatever checks and logging you feel like, and then acts
|
|
as a Unix-domain client and connects to your private server.
|
|
|
|
=head1 TCP Clients with IO::Socket
|
|
|
|
For those preferring a higher-level interface to socket programming, the
|
|
IO::Socket module provides an object-oriented approach. IO::Socket is
|
|
included as part of the standard Perl distribution as of the 5.004
|
|
release. If you're running an earlier version of Perl, just fetch
|
|
IO::Socket from CPAN, where you'll also find modules providing easy
|
|
interfaces to the following systems: DNS, FTP, Ident (RFC 931), NIS and
|
|
NISPlus, NNTP, Ping, POP3, SMTP, SNMP, SSLeay, Telnet, and Time--just
|
|
to name a few.
|
|
|
|
=head2 A Simple Client
|
|
|
|
Here's a client that creates a TCP connection to the "daytime"
|
|
service at port 13 of the host name "localhost" and prints out everything
|
|
that the server there cares to provide.
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
use IO::Socket;
|
|
$remote = IO::Socket::INET->new(
|
|
Proto => "tcp",
|
|
PeerAddr => "localhost",
|
|
PeerPort => "daytime(13)",
|
|
)
|
|
or die "cannot connect to daytime port at localhost";
|
|
while ( <$remote> ) { print }
|
|
|
|
When you run this program, you should get something back that
|
|
looks like this:
|
|
|
|
Wed May 14 08:40:46 MDT 1997
|
|
|
|
Here are what those parameters to the C<new> constructor mean:
|
|
|
|
=over 4
|
|
|
|
=item C<Proto>
|
|
|
|
This is which protocol to use. In this case, the socket handle returned
|
|
will be connected to a TCP socket, because we want a stream-oriented
|
|
connection, that is, one that acts pretty much like a plain old file.
|
|
Not all sockets are this of this type. For example, the UDP protocol
|
|
can be used to make a datagram socket, used for message-passing.
|
|
|
|
=item C<PeerAddr>
|
|
|
|
This is the name or Internet address of the remote host the server is
|
|
running on. We could have specified a longer name like C<"www.perl.com">,
|
|
or an address like C<"204.148.40.9">. For demonstration purposes, we've
|
|
used the special hostname C<"localhost">, which should always mean the
|
|
current machine you're running on. The corresponding Internet address
|
|
for localhost is C<"127.1">, if you'd rather use that.
|
|
|
|
=item C<PeerPort>
|
|
|
|
This is the service name or port number we'd like to connect to.
|
|
We could have gotten away with using just C<"daytime"> on systems with a
|
|
well-configured system services file,[FOOTNOTE: The system services file
|
|
is in I</etc/services> under Unix] but just in case, we've specified the
|
|
port number (13) in parentheses. Using just the number would also have
|
|
worked, but constant numbers make careful programmers nervous.
|
|
|
|
=back
|
|
|
|
Notice how the return value from the C<new> constructor is used as
|
|
a filehandle in the C<while> loop? That's what's called an indirect
|
|
filehandle, a scalar variable containing a filehandle. You can use
|
|
it the same way you would a normal filehandle. For example, you
|
|
can read one line from it this way:
|
|
|
|
$line = <$handle>;
|
|
|
|
all remaining lines from is this way:
|
|
|
|
@lines = <$handle>;
|
|
|
|
and send a line of data to it this way:
|
|
|
|
print $handle "some data\n";
|
|
|
|
=head2 A Webget Client
|
|
|
|
Here's a simple client that takes a remote host to fetch a document
|
|
from, and then a list of documents to get from that host. This is a
|
|
more interesting client than the previous one because it first sends
|
|
something to the server before fetching the server's response.
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
use IO::Socket;
|
|
unless (@ARGV > 1) { die "usage: $0 host document ..." }
|
|
$host = shift(@ARGV);
|
|
$EOL = "\015\012";
|
|
$BLANK = $EOL x 2;
|
|
foreach $document ( @ARGV ) {
|
|
$remote = IO::Socket::INET->new( Proto => "tcp",
|
|
PeerAddr => $host,
|
|
PeerPort => "http(80)",
|
|
);
|
|
unless ($remote) { die "cannot connect to http daemon on $host" }
|
|
$remote->autoflush(1);
|
|
print $remote "GET $document HTTP/1.0" . $BLANK;
|
|
while ( <$remote> ) { print }
|
|
close $remote;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
The web server handing the "http" service, which is assumed to be at
|
|
its standard port, number 80. If the web server you're trying to
|
|
connect to is at a different port (like 1080 or 8080), you should specify
|
|
as the named-parameter pair, C<< PeerPort => 8080 >>. The C<autoflush>
|
|
method is used on the socket because otherwise the system would buffer
|
|
up the output we sent it. (If you're on a Mac, you'll also need to
|
|
change every C<"\n"> in your code that sends data over the network to
|
|
be a C<"\015\012"> instead.)
|
|
|
|
Connecting to the server is only the first part of the process: once you
|
|
have the connection, you have to use the server's language. Each server
|
|
on the network has its own little command language that it expects as
|
|
input. The string that we send to the server starting with "GET" is in
|
|
HTTP syntax. In this case, we simply request each specified document.
|
|
Yes, we really are making a new connection for each document, even though
|
|
it's the same host. That's the way you always used to have to speak HTTP.
|
|
Recent versions of web browsers may request that the remote server leave
|
|
the connection open a little while, but the server doesn't have to honor
|
|
such a request.
|
|
|
|
Here's an example of running that program, which we'll call I<webget>:
|
|
|
|
% webget www.perl.com /guanaco.html
|
|
HTTP/1.1 404 File Not Found
|
|
Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 18:02:32 GMT
|
|
Server: Apache/1.2b6
|
|
Connection: close
|
|
Content-type: text/html
|
|
|
|
<HEAD><TITLE>404 File Not Found</TITLE></HEAD>
|
|
<BODY><H1>File Not Found</H1>
|
|
The requested URL /guanaco.html was not found on this server.<P>
|
|
</BODY>
|
|
|
|
Ok, so that's not very interesting, because it didn't find that
|
|
particular document. But a long response wouldn't have fit on this page.
|
|
|
|
For a more fully-featured version of this program, you should look to
|
|
the I<lwp-request> program included with the LWP modules from CPAN.
|
|
|
|
=head2 Interactive Client with IO::Socket
|
|
|
|
Well, that's all fine if you want to send one command and get one answer,
|
|
but what about setting up something fully interactive, somewhat like
|
|
the way I<telnet> works? That way you can type a line, get the answer,
|
|
type a line, get the answer, etc.
|
|
|
|
This client is more complicated than the two we've done so far, but if
|
|
you're on a system that supports the powerful C<fork> call, the solution
|
|
isn't that rough. Once you've made the connection to whatever service
|
|
you'd like to chat with, call C<fork> to clone your process. Each of
|
|
these two identical process has a very simple job to do: the parent
|
|
copies everything from the socket to standard output, while the child
|
|
simultaneously copies everything from standard input to the socket.
|
|
To accomplish the same thing using just one process would be I<much>
|
|
harder, because it's easier to code two processes to do one thing than it
|
|
is to code one process to do two things. (This keep-it-simple principle
|
|
a cornerstones of the Unix philosophy, and good software engineering as
|
|
well, which is probably why it's spread to other systems.)
|
|
|
|
Here's the code:
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
use strict;
|
|
use IO::Socket;
|
|
my ($host, $port, $kidpid, $handle, $line);
|
|
|
|
unless (@ARGV == 2) { die "usage: $0 host port" }
|
|
($host, $port) = @ARGV;
|
|
|
|
# create a tcp connection to the specified host and port
|
|
$handle = IO::Socket::INET->new(Proto => "tcp",
|
|
PeerAddr => $host,
|
|
PeerPort => $port)
|
|
or die "can't connect to port $port on $host: $!";
|
|
|
|
$handle->autoflush(1); # so output gets there right away
|
|
print STDERR "[Connected to $host:$port]\n";
|
|
|
|
# split the program into two processes, identical twins
|
|
die "can't fork: $!" unless defined($kidpid = fork());
|
|
|
|
# the if{} block runs only in the parent process
|
|
if ($kidpid) {
|
|
# copy the socket to standard output
|
|
while (defined ($line = <$handle>)) {
|
|
print STDOUT $line;
|
|
}
|
|
kill("TERM", $kidpid); # send SIGTERM to child
|
|
}
|
|
# the else{} block runs only in the child process
|
|
else {
|
|
# copy standard input to the socket
|
|
while (defined ($line = <STDIN>)) {
|
|
print $handle $line;
|
|
}
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
The C<kill> function in the parent's C<if> block is there to send a
|
|
signal to our child process (current running in the C<else> block)
|
|
as soon as the remote server has closed its end of the connection.
|
|
|
|
If the remote server sends data a byte at time, and you need that
|
|
data immediately without waiting for a newline (which might not happen),
|
|
you may wish to replace the C<while> loop in the parent with the
|
|
following:
|
|
|
|
my $byte;
|
|
while (sysread($handle, $byte, 1) == 1) {
|
|
print STDOUT $byte;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
Making a system call for each byte you want to read is not very efficient
|
|
(to put it mildly) but is the simplest to explain and works reasonably
|
|
well.
|
|
|
|
=head1 TCP Servers with IO::Socket
|
|
|
|
As always, setting up a server is little bit more involved than running a client.
|
|
The model is that the server creates a special kind of socket that
|
|
does nothing but listen on a particular port for incoming connections.
|
|
It does this by calling the C<< IO::Socket::INET->new() >> method with
|
|
slightly different arguments than the client did.
|
|
|
|
=over 4
|
|
|
|
=item Proto
|
|
|
|
This is which protocol to use. Like our clients, we'll
|
|
still specify C<"tcp"> here.
|
|
|
|
=item LocalPort
|
|
|
|
We specify a local
|
|
port in the C<LocalPort> argument, which we didn't do for the client.
|
|
This is service name or port number for which you want to be the
|
|
server. (Under Unix, ports under 1024 are restricted to the
|
|
superuser.) In our sample, we'll use port 9000, but you can use
|
|
any port that's not currently in use on your system. If you try
|
|
to use one already in used, you'll get an "Address already in use"
|
|
message. Under Unix, the C<netstat -a> command will show
|
|
which services current have servers.
|
|
|
|
=item Listen
|
|
|
|
The C<Listen> parameter is set to the maximum number of
|
|
pending connections we can accept until we turn away incoming clients.
|
|
Think of it as a call-waiting queue for your telephone.
|
|
The low-level Socket module has a special symbol for the system maximum, which
|
|
is SOMAXCONN.
|
|
|
|
=item Reuse
|
|
|
|
The C<Reuse> parameter is needed so that we restart our server
|
|
manually without waiting a few minutes to allow system buffers to
|
|
clear out.
|
|
|
|
=back
|
|
|
|
Once the generic server socket has been created using the parameters
|
|
listed above, the server then waits for a new client to connect
|
|
to it. The server blocks in the C<accept> method, which eventually an
|
|
bidirectional connection to the remote client. (Make sure to autoflush
|
|
this handle to circumvent buffering.)
|
|
|
|
To add to user-friendliness, our server prompts the user for commands.
|
|
Most servers don't do this. Because of the prompt without a newline,
|
|
you'll have to use the C<sysread> variant of the interactive client above.
|
|
|
|
This server accepts one of five different commands, sending output
|
|
back to the client. Note that unlike most network servers, this one
|
|
only handles one incoming client at a time. Multithreaded servers are
|
|
covered in Chapter 6 of the Camel.
|
|
|
|
Here's the code. We'll
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
use IO::Socket;
|
|
use Net::hostent; # for OO version of gethostbyaddr
|
|
|
|
$PORT = 9000; # pick something not in use
|
|
|
|
$server = IO::Socket::INET->new( Proto => 'tcp',
|
|
LocalPort => $PORT,
|
|
Listen => SOMAXCONN,
|
|
Reuse => 1);
|
|
|
|
die "can't setup server" unless $server;
|
|
print "[Server $0 accepting clients]\n";
|
|
|
|
while ($client = $server->accept()) {
|
|
$client->autoflush(1);
|
|
print $client "Welcome to $0; type help for command list.\n";
|
|
$hostinfo = gethostbyaddr($client->peeraddr);
|
|
printf "[Connect from %s]\n", $hostinfo->name || $client->peerhost;
|
|
print $client "Command? ";
|
|
while ( <$client>) {
|
|
next unless /\S/; # blank line
|
|
if (/quit|exit/i) { last; }
|
|
elsif (/date|time/i) { printf $client "%s\n", scalar localtime; }
|
|
elsif (/who/i ) { print $client `who 2>&1`; }
|
|
elsif (/cookie/i ) { print $client `/usr/games/fortune 2>&1`; }
|
|
elsif (/motd/i ) { print $client `cat /etc/motd 2>&1`; }
|
|
else {
|
|
print $client "Commands: quit date who cookie motd\n";
|
|
}
|
|
} continue {
|
|
print $client "Command? ";
|
|
}
|
|
close $client;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
=head1 UDP: Message Passing
|
|
|
|
Another kind of client-server setup is one that uses not connections, but
|
|
messages. UDP communications involve much lower overhead but also provide
|
|
less reliability, as there are no promises that messages will arrive at
|
|
all, let alone in order and unmangled. Still, UDP offers some advantages
|
|
over TCP, including being able to "broadcast" or "multicast" to a whole
|
|
bunch of destination hosts at once (usually on your local subnet). If you
|
|
find yourself overly concerned about reliability and start building checks
|
|
into your message system, then you probably should use just TCP to start
|
|
with.
|
|
|
|
Note that UDP datagrams are I<not> a bytestream and should not be treated
|
|
as such. This makes using I/O mechanisms with internal buffering
|
|
like stdio (i.e. print() and friends) especially cumbersome. Use syswrite(),
|
|
or better send(), like in the example below.
|
|
|
|
Here's a UDP program similar to the sample Internet TCP client given
|
|
earlier. However, instead of checking one host at a time, the UDP version
|
|
will check many of them asynchronously by simulating a multicast and then
|
|
using select() to do a timed-out wait for I/O. To do something similar
|
|
with TCP, you'd have to use a different socket handle for each host.
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
|
|
use strict;
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
use Sys::Hostname;
|
|
|
|
my ( $count, $hisiaddr, $hispaddr, $histime,
|
|
$host, $iaddr, $paddr, $port, $proto,
|
|
$rin, $rout, $rtime, $SECS_of_70_YEARS);
|
|
|
|
$SECS_of_70_YEARS = 2208988800;
|
|
|
|
$iaddr = gethostbyname(hostname());
|
|
$proto = getprotobyname('udp');
|
|
$port = getservbyname('time', 'udp');
|
|
$paddr = sockaddr_in(0, $iaddr); # 0 means let kernel pick
|
|
|
|
socket(SOCKET, PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!";
|
|
bind(SOCKET, $paddr) || die "bind: $!";
|
|
|
|
$| = 1;
|
|
printf "%-12s %8s %s\n", "localhost", 0, scalar localtime time;
|
|
$count = 0;
|
|
for $host (@ARGV) {
|
|
$count++;
|
|
$hisiaddr = inet_aton($host) || die "unknown host";
|
|
$hispaddr = sockaddr_in($port, $hisiaddr);
|
|
defined(send(SOCKET, 0, 0, $hispaddr)) || die "send $host: $!";
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
$rin = '';
|
|
vec($rin, fileno(SOCKET), 1) = 1;
|
|
|
|
# timeout after 10.0 seconds
|
|
while ($count && select($rout = $rin, undef, undef, 10.0)) {
|
|
$rtime = '';
|
|
($hispaddr = recv(SOCKET, $rtime, 4, 0)) || die "recv: $!";
|
|
($port, $hisiaddr) = sockaddr_in($hispaddr);
|
|
$host = gethostbyaddr($hisiaddr, AF_INET);
|
|
$histime = unpack("N", $rtime) - $SECS_of_70_YEARS ;
|
|
printf "%-12s ", $host;
|
|
printf "%8d %s\n", $histime - time, scalar localtime($histime);
|
|
$count--;
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
Note that this example does not include any retries and may consequently
|
|
fail to contact a reachable host. The most prominent reason for this
|
|
is congestion of the queues on the sending host if the number of
|
|
list of hosts to contact is sufficiently large.
|
|
|
|
=head1 SysV IPC
|
|
|
|
While System V IPC isn't so widely used as sockets, it still has some
|
|
interesting uses. You can't, however, effectively use SysV IPC or
|
|
Berkeley mmap() to have shared memory so as to share a variable amongst
|
|
several processes. That's because Perl would reallocate your string when
|
|
you weren't wanting it to.
|
|
|
|
Here's a small example showing shared memory usage.
|
|
|
|
use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_PRIVATE IPC_RMID S_IRWXU);
|
|
|
|
$size = 2000;
|
|
$id = shmget(IPC_PRIVATE, $size, S_IRWXU) || die "$!";
|
|
print "shm key $id\n";
|
|
|
|
$message = "Message #1";
|
|
shmwrite($id, $message, 0, 60) || die "$!";
|
|
print "wrote: '$message'\n";
|
|
shmread($id, $buff, 0, 60) || die "$!";
|
|
print "read : '$buff'\n";
|
|
|
|
# the buffer of shmread is zero-character end-padded.
|
|
substr($buff, index($buff, "\0")) = '';
|
|
print "un" unless $buff eq $message;
|
|
print "swell\n";
|
|
|
|
print "deleting shm $id\n";
|
|
shmctl($id, IPC_RMID, 0) || die "$!";
|
|
|
|
Here's an example of a semaphore:
|
|
|
|
use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_CREAT);
|
|
|
|
$IPC_KEY = 1234;
|
|
$id = semget($IPC_KEY, 10, 0666 | IPC_CREAT ) || die "$!";
|
|
print "shm key $id\n";
|
|
|
|
Put this code in a separate file to be run in more than one process.
|
|
Call the file F<take>:
|
|
|
|
# create a semaphore
|
|
|
|
$IPC_KEY = 1234;
|
|
$id = semget($IPC_KEY, 0 , 0 );
|
|
die if !defined($id);
|
|
|
|
$semnum = 0;
|
|
$semflag = 0;
|
|
|
|
# 'take' semaphore
|
|
# wait for semaphore to be zero
|
|
$semop = 0;
|
|
$opstring1 = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
|
|
|
|
# Increment the semaphore count
|
|
$semop = 1;
|
|
$opstring2 = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
|
|
$opstring = $opstring1 . $opstring2;
|
|
|
|
semop($id,$opstring) || die "$!";
|
|
|
|
Put this code in a separate file to be run in more than one process.
|
|
Call this file F<give>:
|
|
|
|
# 'give' the semaphore
|
|
# run this in the original process and you will see
|
|
# that the second process continues
|
|
|
|
$IPC_KEY = 1234;
|
|
$id = semget($IPC_KEY, 0, 0);
|
|
die if !defined($id);
|
|
|
|
$semnum = 0;
|
|
$semflag = 0;
|
|
|
|
# Decrement the semaphore count
|
|
$semop = -1;
|
|
$opstring = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag);
|
|
|
|
semop($id,$opstring) || die "$!";
|
|
|
|
The SysV IPC code above was written long ago, and it's definitely
|
|
clunky looking. For a more modern look, see the IPC::SysV module
|
|
which is included with Perl starting from Perl 5.005.
|
|
|
|
A small example demonstrating SysV message queues:
|
|
|
|
use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_PRIVATE IPC_RMID IPC_CREAT S_IRWXU);
|
|
|
|
my $id = msgget(IPC_PRIVATE, IPC_CREAT | S_IRWXU);
|
|
|
|
my $sent = "message";
|
|
my $type = 1234;
|
|
my $rcvd;
|
|
my $type_rcvd;
|
|
|
|
if (defined $id) {
|
|
if (msgsnd($id, pack("l! a*", $type_sent, $sent), 0)) {
|
|
if (msgrcv($id, $rcvd, 60, 0, 0)) {
|
|
($type_rcvd, $rcvd) = unpack("l! a*", $rcvd);
|
|
if ($rcvd eq $sent) {
|
|
print "okay\n";
|
|
} else {
|
|
print "not okay\n";
|
|
}
|
|
} else {
|
|
die "# msgrcv failed\n";
|
|
}
|
|
} else {
|
|
die "# msgsnd failed\n";
|
|
}
|
|
msgctl($id, IPC_RMID, 0) || die "# msgctl failed: $!\n";
|
|
} else {
|
|
die "# msgget failed\n";
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
=head1 NOTES
|
|
|
|
Most of these routines quietly but politely return C<undef> when they
|
|
fail instead of causing your program to die right then and there due to
|
|
an uncaught exception. (Actually, some of the new I<Socket> conversion
|
|
functions croak() on bad arguments.) It is therefore essential to
|
|
check return values from these functions. Always begin your socket
|
|
programs this way for optimal success, and don't forget to add B<-T>
|
|
taint checking flag to the #! line for servers:
|
|
|
|
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
|
|
use strict;
|
|
use sigtrap;
|
|
use Socket;
|
|
|
|
=head1 BUGS
|
|
|
|
All these routines create system-specific portability problems. As noted
|
|
elsewhere, Perl is at the mercy of your C libraries for much of its system
|
|
behaviour. It's probably safest to assume broken SysV semantics for
|
|
signals and to stick with simple TCP and UDP socket operations; e.g., don't
|
|
try to pass open file descriptors over a local UDP datagram socket if you
|
|
want your code to stand a chance of being portable.
|
|
|
|
As mentioned in the signals section, because few vendors provide C
|
|
libraries that are safely re-entrant, the prudent programmer will do
|
|
little else within a handler beyond setting a numeric variable that
|
|
already exists; or, if locked into a slow (restarting) system call,
|
|
using die() to raise an exception and longjmp(3) out. In fact, even
|
|
these may in some cases cause a core dump. It's probably best to avoid
|
|
signals except where they are absolutely inevitable. This
|
|
will be addressed in a future release of Perl.
|
|
|
|
=head1 AUTHOR
|
|
|
|
Tom Christiansen, with occasional vestiges of Larry Wall's original
|
|
version and suggestions from the Perl Porters.
|
|
|
|
=head1 SEE ALSO
|
|
|
|
There's a lot more to networking than this, but this should get you
|
|
started.
|
|
|
|
For intrepid programmers, the indispensable textbook is I<Unix Network
|
|
Programming> by W. Richard Stevens (published by Addison-Wesley). Note
|
|
that most books on networking address networking from the perspective of
|
|
a C programmer; translation to Perl is left as an exercise for the reader.
|
|
|
|
The IO::Socket(3) manpage describes the object library, and the Socket(3)
|
|
manpage describes the low-level interface to sockets. Besides the obvious
|
|
functions in L<perlfunc>, you should also check out the F<modules> file
|
|
at your nearest CPAN site. (See L<perlmodlib> or best yet, the F<Perl
|
|
FAQ> for a description of what CPAN is and where to get it.)
|
|
|
|
Section 5 of the F<modules> file is devoted to "Networking, Device Control
|
|
(modems), and Interprocess Communication", and contains numerous unbundled
|
|
modules numerous networking modules, Chat and Expect operations, CGI
|
|
programming, DCE, FTP, IPC, NNTP, Proxy, Ptty, RPC, SNMP, SMTP, Telnet,
|
|
Threads, and ToolTalk--just to name a few.
|