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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
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3 | perlipc - Perl interprocess communication (signals, fifos, pipes, safe subprocesses, sockets, and semaphores) |
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4 | |
5 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
6 | |
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7 | The basic IPC facilities of Perl are built out of the good old Unix |
8 | signals, named pipes, pipe opens, the Berkeley socket routines, and SysV |
9 | IPC calls. Each is used in slightly different situations. |
10 | |
11 | =head1 Signals |
12 | |
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13 | Perl uses a simple signal handling model: the %SIG hash contains names |
14 | or references of user-installed signal handlers. These handlers will |
15 | be called with an argument which is the name of the signal that |
16 | triggered it. A signal may be generated intentionally from a |
17 | particular keyboard sequence like control-C or control-Z, sent to you |
18 | from another process, or triggered automatically by the kernel when |
19 | special events transpire, like a child process exiting, your process |
20 | running out of stack space, or hitting file size limit. |
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21 | |
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22 | For example, to trap an interrupt signal, set up a handler like this: |
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23 | |
24 | sub catch_zap { |
25 | my $signame = shift; |
26 | $shucks++; |
27 | die "Somebody sent me a SIG$signame"; |
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28 | } |
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29 | $SIG{INT} = 'catch_zap'; # could fail in modules |
30 | $SIG{INT} = \&catch_zap; # best strategy |
31 | |
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32 | Prior to Perl 5.7.3 it was necessary to do as little as you possibly |
33 | could in your handler; notice how all we do is set a global variable |
34 | and then raise an exception. That's because on most systems, |
35 | libraries are not re-entrant; particularly, memory allocation and I/O |
36 | routines are not. That meant that doing nearly I<anything> in your |
37 | handler could in theory trigger a memory fault and subsequent core |
38 | dump - see L<Deferred Signals> below. |
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39 | |
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40 | The names of the signals are the ones listed out by C<kill -l> on your |
41 | system, or you can retrieve them from the Config module. Set up an |
42 | @signame list indexed by number to get the name and a %signo table |
43 | indexed by name to get the number: |
44 | |
45 | use Config; |
46 | defined $Config{sig_name} || die "No sigs?"; |
47 | foreach $name (split(' ', $Config{sig_name})) { |
48 | $signo{$name} = $i; |
49 | $signame[$i] = $name; |
50 | $i++; |
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51 | } |
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52 | |
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53 | So to check whether signal 17 and SIGALRM were the same, do just this: |
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54 | |
55 | print "signal #17 = $signame[17]\n"; |
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56 | if ($signo{ALRM}) { |
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57 | print "SIGALRM is $signo{ALRM}\n"; |
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58 | } |
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59 | |
60 | You may also choose to assign the strings C<'IGNORE'> or C<'DEFAULT'> as |
61 | the handler, in which case Perl will try to discard the signal or do the |
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62 | default thing. |
63 | |
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64 | On most Unix platforms, the C<CHLD> (sometimes also known as C<CLD>) signal |
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65 | has special behavior with respect to a value of C<'IGNORE'>. |
66 | Setting C<$SIG{CHLD}> to C<'IGNORE'> on such a platform has the effect of |
67 | not creating zombie processes when the parent process fails to C<wait()> |
68 | on its child processes (i.e. child processes are automatically reaped). |
69 | Calling C<wait()> with C<$SIG{CHLD}> set to C<'IGNORE'> usually returns |
70 | C<-1> on such platforms. |
71 | |
72 | Some signals can be neither trapped nor ignored, such as |
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73 | the KILL and STOP (but not the TSTP) signals. One strategy for |
74 | temporarily ignoring signals is to use a local() statement, which will be |
75 | automatically restored once your block is exited. (Remember that local() |
76 | values are "inherited" by functions called from within that block.) |
77 | |
78 | sub precious { |
79 | local $SIG{INT} = 'IGNORE'; |
80 | &more_functions; |
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81 | } |
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82 | sub more_functions { |
83 | # interrupts still ignored, for now... |
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84 | } |
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85 | |
86 | Sending a signal to a negative process ID means that you send the signal |
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87 | to the entire Unix process-group. This code sends a hang-up signal to all |
88 | processes in the current process group (and sets $SIG{HUP} to IGNORE so |
89 | it doesn't kill itself): |
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90 | |
91 | { |
92 | local $SIG{HUP} = 'IGNORE'; |
93 | kill HUP => -$$; |
94 | # snazzy writing of: kill('HUP', -$$) |
95 | } |
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96 | |
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97 | Another interesting signal to send is signal number zero. This doesn't |
98 | actually affect another process, but instead checks whether it's alive |
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99 | or has changed its UID. |
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100 | |
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101 | unless (kill 0 => $kid_pid) { |
102 | warn "something wicked happened to $kid_pid"; |
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103 | } |
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104 | |
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105 | You might also want to employ anonymous functions for simple signal |
106 | handlers: |
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107 | |
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108 | $SIG{INT} = sub { die "\nOutta here!\n" }; |
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109 | |
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110 | But that will be problematic for the more complicated handlers that need |
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111 | to reinstall themselves. Because Perl's signal mechanism is currently |
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112 | based on the signal(3) function from the C library, you may sometimes be so |
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113 | misfortunate as to run on systems where that function is "broken", that |
114 | is, it behaves in the old unreliable SysV way rather than the newer, more |
115 | reasonable BSD and POSIX fashion. So you'll see defensive people writing |
116 | signal handlers like this: |
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117 | |
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118 | sub REAPER { |
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119 | $waitedpid = wait; |
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120 | # loathe sysV: it makes us not only reinstate |
121 | # the handler, but place it after the wait |
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122 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; |
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123 | } |
124 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; |
125 | # now do something that forks... |
126 | |
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127 | or better still: |
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128 | |
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129 | use POSIX ":sys_wait_h"; |
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130 | sub REAPER { |
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131 | my $child; |
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132 | # If a second child dies while in the signal handler caused by the |
133 | # first death, we won't get another signal. So must loop here else |
134 | # we will leave the unreaped child as a zombie. And the next time |
135 | # two children die we get another zombie. And so on. |
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136 | while (($child = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) > 0) { |
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137 | $Kid_Status{$child} = $?; |
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138 | } |
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139 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # still loathe sysV |
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140 | } |
141 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; |
142 | # do something that forks... |
143 | |
144 | Signal handling is also used for timeouts in Unix, While safely |
145 | protected within an C<eval{}> block, you set a signal handler to trap |
146 | alarm signals and then schedule to have one delivered to you in some |
147 | number of seconds. Then try your blocking operation, clearing the alarm |
148 | when it's done but not before you've exited your C<eval{}> block. If it |
149 | goes off, you'll use die() to jump out of the block, much as you might |
150 | using longjmp() or throw() in other languages. |
151 | |
152 | Here's an example: |
153 | |
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154 | eval { |
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155 | local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "alarm clock restart" }; |
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156 | alarm 10; |
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157 | flock(FH, 2); # blocking write lock |
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158 | alarm 0; |
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159 | }; |
160 | if ($@ and $@ !~ /alarm clock restart/) { die } |
161 | |
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162 | If the operation being timed out is system() or qx(), this technique |
163 | is liable to generate zombies. If this matters to you, you'll |
164 | need to do your own fork() and exec(), and kill the errant child process. |
165 | |
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166 | For more complex signal handling, you might see the standard POSIX |
167 | module. Lamentably, this is almost entirely undocumented, but |
168 | the F<t/lib/posix.t> file from the Perl source distribution has some |
169 | examples in it. |
170 | |
171 | =head1 Named Pipes |
172 | |
173 | A named pipe (often referred to as a FIFO) is an old Unix IPC |
174 | mechanism for processes communicating on the same machine. It works |
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175 | just like a regular, connected anonymous pipes, except that the |
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176 | processes rendezvous using a filename and don't have to be related. |
177 | |
178 | To create a named pipe, use the Unix command mknod(1) or on some |
179 | systems, mkfifo(1). These may not be in your normal path. |
180 | |
181 | # system return val is backwards, so && not || |
182 | # |
183 | $ENV{PATH} .= ":/etc:/usr/etc"; |
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184 | if ( system('mknod', $path, 'p') |
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185 | && system('mkfifo', $path) ) |
186 | { |
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187 | die "mk{nod,fifo} $path failed"; |
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188 | } |
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189 | |
190 | |
191 | A fifo is convenient when you want to connect a process to an unrelated |
192 | one. When you open a fifo, the program will block until there's something |
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193 | on the other end. |
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194 | |
195 | For example, let's say you'd like to have your F<.signature> file be a |
196 | named pipe that has a Perl program on the other end. Now every time any |
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197 | program (like a mailer, news reader, finger program, etc.) tries to read |
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198 | from that file, the reading program will block and your program will |
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199 | supply the new signature. We'll use the pipe-checking file test B<-p> |
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200 | to find out whether anyone (or anything) has accidentally removed our fifo. |
201 | |
202 | chdir; # go home |
203 | $FIFO = '.signature'; |
204 | $ENV{PATH} .= ":/etc:/usr/games"; |
205 | |
206 | while (1) { |
207 | unless (-p $FIFO) { |
208 | unlink $FIFO; |
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209 | system('mknod', $FIFO, 'p') |
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210 | && die "can't mknod $FIFO: $!"; |
54310121 |
211 | } |
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212 | |
213 | # next line blocks until there's a reader |
214 | open (FIFO, "> $FIFO") || die "can't write $FIFO: $!"; |
215 | print FIFO "John Smith (smith\@host.org)\n", `fortune -s`; |
216 | close FIFO; |
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217 | sleep 2; # to avoid dup signals |
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218 | } |
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219 | |
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220 | =head2 Deferred Signals |
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221 | |
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222 | In Perls before Perl 5.7.3 by installing Perl code to deal with |
223 | signals, you were exposing yourself to danger from two things. First, |
224 | few system library functions are re-entrant. If the signal interrupts |
225 | while Perl is executing one function (like malloc(3) or printf(3)), |
226 | and your signal handler then calls the same function again, you could |
227 | get unpredictable behavior--often, a core dump. Second, Perl isn't |
228 | itself re-entrant at the lowest levels. If the signal interrupts Perl |
229 | while Perl is changing its own internal data structures, similarly |
230 | unpredictable behaviour may result. |
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231 | |
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232 | There were two things you could do, knowing this: be paranoid or be |
233 | pragmatic. The paranoid approach was to do as little as possible in your |
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234 | signal handler. Set an existing integer variable that already has a |
235 | value, and return. This doesn't help you if you're in a slow system call, |
236 | which will just restart. That means you have to C<die> to longjump(3) out |
237 | of the handler. Even this is a little cavalier for the true paranoiac, |
238 | who avoids C<die> in a handler because the system I<is> out to get you. |
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239 | The pragmatic approach was to say ``I know the risks, but prefer the |
240 | convenience'', and to do anything you wanted in your signal handler, |
241 | and be prepared to clean up core dumps now and again. |
242 | |
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243 | In Perl 5.7.3 and later to avoid these problems signals are |
244 | "deferred"-- that is when the signal is delivered to the process by |
245 | the system (to the C code that implements Perl) a flag is set, and the |
246 | handler returns immediately. Then at strategic "safe" points in the |
247 | Perl interpreter (e.g. when it is about to execute a new opcode) the |
248 | flags are checked and the Perl level handler from %SIG is |
249 | executed. The "deferred" scheme allows much more flexibility in the |
250 | coding of signal handler as we know Perl interpreter is in a safe |
251 | state, and that we are not in a system library function when the |
252 | handler is called. However the implementation does differ from |
253 | previous Perls in the following ways: |
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254 | |
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255 | =over 4 |
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256 | |
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257 | =item Long running opcodes |
258 | |
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259 | As Perl interpreter only looks at the signal flags when it about to |
260 | execute a new opcode if a signal arrives during a long running opcode |
261 | (e.g. a regular expression operation on a very large string) then |
262 | signal will not be seen until operation completes. |
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263 | |
264 | =item Interrupting IO |
265 | |
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266 | When a signal is delivered (e.g. INT control-C) the operating system |
267 | breaks into IO operations like C<read> (used to implement Perls |
268 | E<lt>E<gt> operator). On older Perls the handler was called |
269 | immediately (and as C<read> is not "unsafe" this worked well). With |
270 | the "deferred" scheme the handler is not called immediately, and if |
271 | Perl is using system's C<stdio> library that library may re-start the |
272 | C<read> without returning to Perl and giving it a chance to call the |
273 | %SIG handler. If this happens on your system the solution is to use |
274 | C<:perlio> layer to do IO - at least on those handles which you want |
275 | to be able to break into with signals. (The C<:perlio> layer checks |
276 | the signal flags and calls %SIG handlers before resuming IO operation.) |
277 | |
278 | Note that the default in Perl 5.7.3 and later is to automatically use |
279 | the C<:perlio> layer. |
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280 | |
281 | =item Signals as "faults" |
282 | |
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283 | Certain signals e.g. SEGV, ILL, BUS are generated as a result of |
284 | virtual memory or other "faults". These are normally fatal and there |
285 | is little a Perl-level handler can do with them. (In particular the |
286 | old signal scheme was particularly unsafe in such cases.) However if |
287 | a %SIG handler is set the new scheme simply sets a flag and returns as |
288 | described above. This may cause the operating system to try the |
289 | offending machine instruction again and - as nothing has changed - it |
290 | will generate the signal again. The result of this is a rather odd |
291 | "loop". In future Perl's signal mechanism may be changed to avoid this |
292 | - perhaps by simply disallowing %SIG handlers on signals of that |
293 | type. Until then the work-round is not to set a %SIG handler on those |
294 | signals. (Which signals they are is operating system dependant.) |
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295 | |
296 | =item Signals triggered by operating system state |
297 | |
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298 | On some operating systems certain signal handlers are supposed to "do |
299 | something" before returning. One example can be CHLD or CLD which |
300 | indicates a child process has completed. On some operating systems the |
301 | signal handler is expected to C<wait> for the completed child |
302 | process. On such systems the deferred signal scheme will not work for |
303 | those signals (it does not do the C<wait>). Again the failure will |
304 | look like a loop as the operating system will re-issue the signal as |
305 | there are un-waited-for completed child processes. |
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306 | |
307 | =back 4 |
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308 | |
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309 | =head1 Using open() for IPC |
310 | |
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311 | Perl's basic open() statement can also be used for unidirectional |
312 | interprocess communication by either appending or prepending a pipe |
313 | symbol to the second argument to open(). Here's how to start |
314 | something up in a child process you intend to write to: |
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315 | |
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316 | open(SPOOLER, "| cat -v | lpr -h 2>/dev/null") |
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317 | || die "can't fork: $!"; |
318 | local $SIG{PIPE} = sub { die "spooler pipe broke" }; |
319 | print SPOOLER "stuff\n"; |
320 | close SPOOLER || die "bad spool: $! $?"; |
321 | |
322 | And here's how to start up a child process you intend to read from: |
323 | |
324 | open(STATUS, "netstat -an 2>&1 |") |
325 | || die "can't fork: $!"; |
326 | while (<STATUS>) { |
327 | next if /^(tcp|udp)/; |
328 | print; |
54310121 |
329 | } |
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330 | close STATUS || die "bad netstat: $! $?"; |
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331 | |
332 | If one can be sure that a particular program is a Perl script that is |
333 | expecting filenames in @ARGV, the clever programmer can write something |
334 | like this: |
335 | |
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336 | % program f1 "cmd1|" - f2 "cmd2|" f3 < tmpfile |
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337 | |
338 | and irrespective of which shell it's called from, the Perl program will |
339 | read from the file F<f1>, the process F<cmd1>, standard input (F<tmpfile> |
340 | in this case), the F<f2> file, the F<cmd2> command, and finally the F<f3> |
341 | file. Pretty nifty, eh? |
342 | |
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343 | You might notice that you could use backticks for much the |
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344 | same effect as opening a pipe for reading: |
345 | |
346 | print grep { !/^(tcp|udp)/ } `netstat -an 2>&1`; |
347 | die "bad netstat" if $?; |
348 | |
349 | While this is true on the surface, it's much more efficient to process the |
350 | file one line or record at a time because then you don't have to read the |
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351 | whole thing into memory at once. It also gives you finer control of the |
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352 | whole process, letting you to kill off the child process early if you'd |
353 | like. |
354 | |
355 | Be careful to check both the open() and the close() return values. If |
356 | you're I<writing> to a pipe, you should also trap SIGPIPE. Otherwise, |
357 | think of what happens when you start up a pipe to a command that doesn't |
358 | exist: the open() will in all likelihood succeed (it only reflects the |
359 | fork()'s success), but then your output will fail--spectacularly. Perl |
360 | can't know whether the command worked because your command is actually |
361 | running in a separate process whose exec() might have failed. Therefore, |
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362 | while readers of bogus commands return just a quick end of file, writers |
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363 | to bogus command will trigger a signal they'd better be prepared to |
364 | handle. Consider: |
365 | |
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366 | open(FH, "|bogus") or die "can't fork: $!"; |
367 | print FH "bang\n" or die "can't write: $!"; |
368 | close FH or die "can't close: $!"; |
369 | |
370 | That won't blow up until the close, and it will blow up with a SIGPIPE. |
371 | To catch it, you could use this: |
372 | |
373 | $SIG{PIPE} = 'IGNORE'; |
374 | open(FH, "|bogus") or die "can't fork: $!"; |
375 | print FH "bang\n" or die "can't write: $!"; |
376 | close FH or die "can't close: status=$?"; |
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377 | |
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378 | =head2 Filehandles |
379 | |
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380 | Both the main process and any child processes it forks share the same |
381 | STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR filehandles. If both processes try to access |
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382 | them at once, strange things can happen. You may also want to close |
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383 | or reopen the filehandles for the child. You can get around this by |
384 | opening your pipe with open(), but on some systems this means that the |
385 | child process cannot outlive the parent. |
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386 | |
387 | =head2 Background Processes |
388 | |
389 | You can run a command in the background with: |
390 | |
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391 | system("cmd &"); |
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392 | |
393 | The command's STDOUT and STDERR (and possibly STDIN, depending on your |
394 | shell) will be the same as the parent's. You won't need to catch |
395 | SIGCHLD because of the double-fork taking place (see below for more |
396 | details). |
397 | |
398 | =head2 Complete Dissociation of Child from Parent |
399 | |
400 | In some cases (starting server processes, for instance) you'll want to |
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401 | completely dissociate the child process from the parent. This is |
402 | often called daemonization. A well behaved daemon will also chdir() |
403 | to the root directory (so it doesn't prevent unmounting the filesystem |
404 | containing the directory from which it was launched) and redirect its |
405 | standard file descriptors from and to F</dev/null> (so that random |
406 | output doesn't wind up on the user's terminal). |
407 | |
408 | use POSIX 'setsid'; |
409 | |
410 | sub daemonize { |
411 | chdir '/' or die "Can't chdir to /: $!"; |
412 | open STDIN, '/dev/null' or die "Can't read /dev/null: $!"; |
413 | open STDOUT, '>/dev/null' |
414 | or die "Can't write to /dev/null: $!"; |
415 | defined(my $pid = fork) or die "Can't fork: $!"; |
416 | exit if $pid; |
417 | setsid or die "Can't start a new session: $!"; |
418 | open STDERR, '>&STDOUT' or die "Can't dup stdout: $!"; |
419 | } |
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420 | |
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421 | The fork() has to come before the setsid() to ensure that you aren't a |
422 | process group leader (the setsid() will fail if you are). If your |
423 | system doesn't have the setsid() function, open F</dev/tty> and use the |
424 | C<TIOCNOTTY> ioctl() on it instead. See L<tty(4)> for details. |
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425 | |
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426 | Non-Unix users should check their Your_OS::Process module for other |
427 | solutions. |
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428 | |
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429 | =head2 Safe Pipe Opens |
430 | |
431 | Another interesting approach to IPC is making your single program go |
432 | multiprocess and communicate between (or even amongst) yourselves. The |
433 | open() function will accept a file argument of either C<"-|"> or C<"|-"> |
434 | to do a very interesting thing: it forks a child connected to the |
435 | filehandle you've opened. The child is running the same program as the |
436 | parent. This is useful for safely opening a file when running under an |
437 | assumed UID or GID, for example. If you open a pipe I<to> minus, you can |
438 | write to the filehandle you opened and your kid will find it in his |
439 | STDIN. If you open a pipe I<from> minus, you can read from the filehandle |
440 | you opened whatever your kid writes to his STDOUT. |
441 | |
a1ce9542 |
442 | use English '-no_match_vars'; |
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443 | my $sleep_count = 0; |
444 | |
54310121 |
445 | do { |
c07a80fd |
446 | $pid = open(KID_TO_WRITE, "|-"); |
4633a7c4 |
447 | unless (defined $pid) { |
448 | warn "cannot fork: $!"; |
449 | die "bailing out" if $sleep_count++ > 6; |
450 | sleep 10; |
54310121 |
451 | } |
4633a7c4 |
452 | } until defined $pid; |
453 | |
454 | if ($pid) { # parent |
c07a80fd |
455 | print KID_TO_WRITE @some_data; |
456 | close(KID_TO_WRITE) || warn "kid exited $?"; |
4633a7c4 |
457 | } else { # child |
458 | ($EUID, $EGID) = ($UID, $GID); # suid progs only |
54310121 |
459 | open (FILE, "> /safe/file") |
4633a7c4 |
460 | || die "can't open /safe/file: $!"; |
461 | while (<STDIN>) { |
462 | print FILE; # child's STDIN is parent's KID |
54310121 |
463 | } |
4633a7c4 |
464 | exit; # don't forget this |
54310121 |
465 | } |
4633a7c4 |
466 | |
467 | Another common use for this construct is when you need to execute |
468 | something without the shell's interference. With system(), it's |
54310121 |
469 | straightforward, but you can't use a pipe open or backticks safely. |
4633a7c4 |
470 | That's because there's no way to stop the shell from getting its hands on |
471 | your arguments. Instead, use lower-level control to call exec() directly. |
472 | |
54310121 |
473 | Here's a safe backtick or pipe open for read: |
4633a7c4 |
474 | |
475 | # add error processing as above |
c07a80fd |
476 | $pid = open(KID_TO_READ, "-|"); |
4633a7c4 |
477 | |
478 | if ($pid) { # parent |
c07a80fd |
479 | while (<KID_TO_READ>) { |
4633a7c4 |
480 | # do something interesting |
54310121 |
481 | } |
c07a80fd |
482 | close(KID_TO_READ) || warn "kid exited $?"; |
4633a7c4 |
483 | |
484 | } else { # child |
485 | ($EUID, $EGID) = ($UID, $GID); # suid only |
486 | exec($program, @options, @args) |
487 | || die "can't exec program: $!"; |
488 | # NOTREACHED |
54310121 |
489 | } |
4633a7c4 |
490 | |
491 | |
492 | And here's a safe pipe open for writing: |
493 | |
494 | # add error processing as above |
c07a80fd |
495 | $pid = open(KID_TO_WRITE, "|-"); |
4633a7c4 |
496 | $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die "whoops, $program pipe broke" }; |
497 | |
498 | if ($pid) { # parent |
499 | for (@data) { |
c07a80fd |
500 | print KID_TO_WRITE; |
54310121 |
501 | } |
c07a80fd |
502 | close(KID_TO_WRITE) || warn "kid exited $?"; |
4633a7c4 |
503 | |
504 | } else { # child |
505 | ($EUID, $EGID) = ($UID, $GID); |
506 | exec($program, @options, @args) |
507 | || die "can't exec program: $!"; |
508 | # NOTREACHED |
54310121 |
509 | } |
4633a7c4 |
510 | |
511 | Note that these operations are full Unix forks, which means they may not be |
512 | correctly implemented on alien systems. Additionally, these are not true |
54310121 |
513 | multithreading. If you'd like to learn more about threading, see the |
184e9718 |
514 | F<modules> file mentioned below in the SEE ALSO section. |
4633a7c4 |
515 | |
7b05b7e3 |
516 | =head2 Bidirectional Communication with Another Process |
4633a7c4 |
517 | |
518 | While this works reasonably well for unidirectional communication, what |
519 | about bidirectional communication? The obvious thing you'd like to do |
520 | doesn't actually work: |
521 | |
c07a80fd |
522 | open(PROG_FOR_READING_AND_WRITING, "| some program |") |
4633a7c4 |
523 | |
9f1b1f2d |
524 | and if you forget to use the C<use warnings> pragma or the B<-w> flag, |
525 | then you'll miss out entirely on the diagnostic message: |
4633a7c4 |
526 | |
527 | Can't do bidirectional pipe at -e line 1. |
528 | |
529 | If you really want to, you can use the standard open2() library function |
7b05b7e3 |
530 | to catch both ends. There's also an open3() for tridirectional I/O so you |
4633a7c4 |
531 | can also catch your child's STDERR, but doing so would then require an |
532 | awkward select() loop and wouldn't allow you to use normal Perl input |
533 | operations. |
534 | |
535 | If you look at its source, you'll see that open2() uses low-level |
5a964f20 |
536 | primitives like Unix pipe() and exec() calls to create all the connections. |
4633a7c4 |
537 | While it might have been slightly more efficient by using socketpair(), it |
538 | would have then been even less portable than it already is. The open2() |
539 | and open3() functions are unlikely to work anywhere except on a Unix |
540 | system or some other one purporting to be POSIX compliant. |
541 | |
542 | Here's an example of using open2(): |
543 | |
544 | use FileHandle; |
545 | use IPC::Open2; |
5a964f20 |
546 | $pid = open2(*Reader, *Writer, "cat -u -n" ); |
4633a7c4 |
547 | print Writer "stuff\n"; |
548 | $got = <Reader>; |
549 | |
6a3992aa |
550 | The problem with this is that Unix buffering is really going to |
551 | ruin your day. Even though your C<Writer> filehandle is auto-flushed, |
4633a7c4 |
552 | and the process on the other end will get your data in a timely manner, |
6a3992aa |
553 | you can't usually do anything to force it to give it back to you |
54310121 |
554 | in a similarly quick fashion. In this case, we could, because we |
4633a7c4 |
555 | gave I<cat> a B<-u> flag to make it unbuffered. But very few Unix |
556 | commands are designed to operate over pipes, so this seldom works |
54310121 |
557 | unless you yourself wrote the program on the other end of the |
4633a7c4 |
558 | double-ended pipe. |
559 | |
54310121 |
560 | A solution to this is the nonstandard F<Comm.pl> library. It uses |
4633a7c4 |
561 | pseudo-ttys to make your program behave more reasonably: |
562 | |
563 | require 'Comm.pl'; |
564 | $ph = open_proc('cat -n'); |
565 | for (1..10) { |
566 | print $ph "a line\n"; |
567 | print "got back ", scalar <$ph>; |
568 | } |
a0d0e21e |
569 | |
4633a7c4 |
570 | This way you don't have to have control over the source code of the |
54310121 |
571 | program you're using. The F<Comm> library also has expect() |
572 | and interact() functions. Find the library (and we hope its |
4633a7c4 |
573 | successor F<IPC::Chat>) at your nearest CPAN archive as detailed |
184e9718 |
574 | in the SEE ALSO section below. |
a0d0e21e |
575 | |
c8db1d39 |
576 | The newer Expect.pm module from CPAN also addresses this kind of thing. |
577 | This module requires two other modules from CPAN: IO::Pty and IO::Stty. |
578 | It sets up a pseudo-terminal to interact with programs that insist on |
a11adca0 |
579 | using talking to the terminal device driver. If your system is |
c8db1d39 |
580 | amongst those supported, this may be your best bet. |
581 | |
5a964f20 |
582 | =head2 Bidirectional Communication with Yourself |
583 | |
584 | If you want, you may make low-level pipe() and fork() |
585 | to stitch this together by hand. This example only |
586 | talks to itself, but you could reopen the appropriate |
587 | handles to STDIN and STDOUT and call other processes. |
588 | |
589 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
590 | # pipe1 - bidirectional communication using two pipe pairs |
591 | # designed for the socketpair-challenged |
592 | use IO::Handle; # thousands of lines just for autoflush :-( |
593 | pipe(PARENT_RDR, CHILD_WTR); # XXX: failure? |
594 | pipe(CHILD_RDR, PARENT_WTR); # XXX: failure? |
595 | CHILD_WTR->autoflush(1); |
596 | PARENT_WTR->autoflush(1); |
597 | |
598 | if ($pid = fork) { |
599 | close PARENT_RDR; close PARENT_WTR; |
600 | print CHILD_WTR "Parent Pid $$ is sending this\n"; |
601 | chomp($line = <CHILD_RDR>); |
602 | print "Parent Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n"; |
603 | close CHILD_RDR; close CHILD_WTR; |
604 | waitpid($pid,0); |
605 | } else { |
606 | die "cannot fork: $!" unless defined $pid; |
607 | close CHILD_RDR; close CHILD_WTR; |
608 | chomp($line = <PARENT_RDR>); |
609 | print "Child Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n"; |
610 | print PARENT_WTR "Child Pid $$ is sending this\n"; |
611 | close PARENT_RDR; close PARENT_WTR; |
612 | exit; |
613 | } |
614 | |
a11adca0 |
615 | But you don't actually have to make two pipe calls. If you |
5a964f20 |
616 | have the socketpair() system call, it will do this all for you. |
617 | |
618 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
619 | # pipe2 - bidirectional communication using socketpair |
620 | # "the best ones always go both ways" |
621 | |
622 | use Socket; |
623 | use IO::Handle; # thousands of lines just for autoflush :-( |
624 | # We say AF_UNIX because although *_LOCAL is the |
625 | # POSIX 1003.1g form of the constant, many machines |
626 | # still don't have it. |
627 | socketpair(CHILD, PARENT, AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, PF_UNSPEC) |
628 | or die "socketpair: $!"; |
629 | |
630 | CHILD->autoflush(1); |
631 | PARENT->autoflush(1); |
632 | |
633 | if ($pid = fork) { |
634 | close PARENT; |
635 | print CHILD "Parent Pid $$ is sending this\n"; |
636 | chomp($line = <CHILD>); |
637 | print "Parent Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n"; |
638 | close CHILD; |
639 | waitpid($pid,0); |
640 | } else { |
641 | die "cannot fork: $!" unless defined $pid; |
642 | close CHILD; |
643 | chomp($line = <PARENT>); |
644 | print "Child Pid $$ just read this: `$line'\n"; |
645 | print PARENT "Child Pid $$ is sending this\n"; |
646 | close PARENT; |
647 | exit; |
648 | } |
649 | |
4633a7c4 |
650 | =head1 Sockets: Client/Server Communication |
a0d0e21e |
651 | |
6a3992aa |
652 | While not limited to Unix-derived operating systems (e.g., WinSock on PCs |
4633a7c4 |
653 | provides socket support, as do some VMS libraries), you may not have |
184e9718 |
654 | sockets on your system, in which case this section probably isn't going to do |
6a3992aa |
655 | you much good. With sockets, you can do both virtual circuits (i.e., TCP |
656 | streams) and datagrams (i.e., UDP packets). You may be able to do even more |
4633a7c4 |
657 | depending on your system. |
658 | |
659 | The Perl function calls for dealing with sockets have the same names as |
660 | the corresponding system calls in C, but their arguments tend to differ |
661 | for two reasons: first, Perl filehandles work differently than C file |
662 | descriptors. Second, Perl already knows the length of its strings, so you |
663 | don't need to pass that information. |
a0d0e21e |
664 | |
4633a7c4 |
665 | One of the major problems with old socket code in Perl was that it used |
666 | hard-coded values for some of the constants, which severely hurt |
667 | portability. If you ever see code that does anything like explicitly |
668 | setting C<$AF_INET = 2>, you know you're in for big trouble: An |
669 | immeasurably superior approach is to use the C<Socket> module, which more |
670 | reliably grants access to various constants and functions you'll need. |
a0d0e21e |
671 | |
68dc0745 |
672 | If you're not writing a server/client for an existing protocol like |
673 | NNTP or SMTP, you should give some thought to how your server will |
674 | know when the client has finished talking, and vice-versa. Most |
675 | protocols are based on one-line messages and responses (so one party |
4a6725af |
676 | knows the other has finished when a "\n" is received) or multi-line |
68dc0745 |
677 | messages and responses that end with a period on an empty line |
678 | ("\n.\n" terminates a message/response). |
679 | |
5a964f20 |
680 | =head2 Internet Line Terminators |
681 | |
682 | The Internet line terminator is "\015\012". Under ASCII variants of |
683 | Unix, that could usually be written as "\r\n", but under other systems, |
684 | "\r\n" might at times be "\015\015\012", "\012\012\015", or something |
685 | completely different. The standards specify writing "\015\012" to be |
686 | conformant (be strict in what you provide), but they also recommend |
687 | accepting a lone "\012" on input (but be lenient in what you require). |
688 | We haven't always been very good about that in the code in this manpage, |
689 | but unless you're on a Mac, you'll probably be ok. |
690 | |
4633a7c4 |
691 | =head2 Internet TCP Clients and Servers |
a0d0e21e |
692 | |
4633a7c4 |
693 | Use Internet-domain sockets when you want to do client-server |
694 | communication that might extend to machines outside of your own system. |
695 | |
696 | Here's a sample TCP client using Internet-domain sockets: |
697 | |
698 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
4633a7c4 |
699 | use strict; |
700 | use Socket; |
701 | my ($remote,$port, $iaddr, $paddr, $proto, $line); |
702 | |
703 | $remote = shift || 'localhost'; |
704 | $port = shift || 2345; # random port |
705 | if ($port =~ /\D/) { $port = getservbyname($port, 'tcp') } |
706 | die "No port" unless $port; |
707 | $iaddr = inet_aton($remote) || die "no host: $remote"; |
708 | $paddr = sockaddr_in($port, $iaddr); |
709 | |
710 | $proto = getprotobyname('tcp'); |
711 | socket(SOCK, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!"; |
712 | connect(SOCK, $paddr) || die "connect: $!"; |
54310121 |
713 | while (defined($line = <SOCK>)) { |
4633a7c4 |
714 | print $line; |
54310121 |
715 | } |
4633a7c4 |
716 | |
717 | close (SOCK) || die "close: $!"; |
718 | exit; |
719 | |
720 | And here's a corresponding server to go along with it. We'll |
721 | leave the address as INADDR_ANY so that the kernel can choose |
54310121 |
722 | the appropriate interface on multihomed hosts. If you want sit |
c07a80fd |
723 | on a particular interface (like the external side of a gateway |
724 | or firewall machine), you should fill this in with your real address |
725 | instead. |
726 | |
727 | #!/usr/bin/perl -Tw |
c07a80fd |
728 | use strict; |
729 | BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' } |
730 | use Socket; |
731 | use Carp; |
5865a7df |
732 | my $EOL = "\015\012"; |
c07a80fd |
733 | |
54310121 |
734 | sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" } |
c07a80fd |
735 | |
736 | my $port = shift || 2345; |
737 | my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp'); |
51ee6500 |
738 | |
5865a7df |
739 | ($port) = $port =~ /^(\d+)$/ or die "invalid port"; |
6a3992aa |
740 | |
c07a80fd |
741 | socket(Server, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!"; |
54310121 |
742 | setsockopt(Server, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, |
c07a80fd |
743 | pack("l", 1)) || die "setsockopt: $!"; |
744 | bind(Server, sockaddr_in($port, INADDR_ANY)) || die "bind: $!"; |
745 | listen(Server,SOMAXCONN) || die "listen: $!"; |
746 | |
747 | logmsg "server started on port $port"; |
748 | |
749 | my $paddr; |
750 | |
751 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; |
752 | |
753 | for ( ; $paddr = accept(Client,Server); close Client) { |
754 | my($port,$iaddr) = sockaddr_in($paddr); |
755 | my $name = gethostbyaddr($iaddr,AF_INET); |
756 | |
54310121 |
757 | logmsg "connection from $name [", |
758 | inet_ntoa($iaddr), "] |
c07a80fd |
759 | at port $port"; |
760 | |
54310121 |
761 | print Client "Hello there, $name, it's now ", |
5a964f20 |
762 | scalar localtime, $EOL; |
54310121 |
763 | } |
c07a80fd |
764 | |
54310121 |
765 | And here's a multithreaded version. It's multithreaded in that |
766 | like most typical servers, it spawns (forks) a slave server to |
c07a80fd |
767 | handle the client request so that the master server can quickly |
768 | go back to service a new client. |
4633a7c4 |
769 | |
770 | #!/usr/bin/perl -Tw |
4633a7c4 |
771 | use strict; |
772 | BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' } |
a0d0e21e |
773 | use Socket; |
4633a7c4 |
774 | use Carp; |
5865a7df |
775 | my $EOL = "\015\012"; |
a0d0e21e |
776 | |
4633a7c4 |
777 | sub spawn; # forward declaration |
54310121 |
778 | sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" } |
a0d0e21e |
779 | |
4633a7c4 |
780 | my $port = shift || 2345; |
781 | my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp'); |
51ee6500 |
782 | |
5865a7df |
783 | ($port) = $port =~ /^(\d+)$/ or die "invalid port"; |
54310121 |
784 | |
c07a80fd |
785 | socket(Server, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!"; |
54310121 |
786 | setsockopt(Server, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, |
c07a80fd |
787 | pack("l", 1)) || die "setsockopt: $!"; |
788 | bind(Server, sockaddr_in($port, INADDR_ANY)) || die "bind: $!"; |
789 | listen(Server,SOMAXCONN) || die "listen: $!"; |
a0d0e21e |
790 | |
4633a7c4 |
791 | logmsg "server started on port $port"; |
a0d0e21e |
792 | |
4633a7c4 |
793 | my $waitedpid = 0; |
794 | my $paddr; |
a0d0e21e |
795 | |
816229cf |
796 | use POSIX ":sys_wait_h"; |
54310121 |
797 | sub REAPER { |
816229cf |
798 | my $child; |
799 | while (($waitedpid = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) > 0) { |
800 | logmsg "reaped $waitedpid" . ($? ? " with exit $?" : ''); |
801 | } |
6a3992aa |
802 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # loathe sysV |
4633a7c4 |
803 | } |
804 | |
805 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; |
806 | |
54310121 |
807 | for ( $waitedpid = 0; |
808 | ($paddr = accept(Client,Server)) || $waitedpid; |
809 | $waitedpid = 0, close Client) |
4633a7c4 |
810 | { |
6a3992aa |
811 | next if $waitedpid and not $paddr; |
4633a7c4 |
812 | my($port,$iaddr) = sockaddr_in($paddr); |
813 | my $name = gethostbyaddr($iaddr,AF_INET); |
814 | |
54310121 |
815 | logmsg "connection from $name [", |
816 | inet_ntoa($iaddr), "] |
4633a7c4 |
817 | at port $port"; |
a0d0e21e |
818 | |
54310121 |
819 | spawn sub { |
b921b357 |
820 | $|=1; |
5a964f20 |
821 | print "Hello there, $name, it's now ", scalar localtime, $EOL; |
822 | exec '/usr/games/fortune' # XXX: `wrong' line terminators |
4633a7c4 |
823 | or confess "can't exec fortune: $!"; |
824 | }; |
a0d0e21e |
825 | |
54310121 |
826 | } |
a0d0e21e |
827 | |
4633a7c4 |
828 | sub spawn { |
829 | my $coderef = shift; |
a0d0e21e |
830 | |
54310121 |
831 | unless (@_ == 0 && $coderef && ref($coderef) eq 'CODE') { |
4633a7c4 |
832 | confess "usage: spawn CODEREF"; |
a0d0e21e |
833 | } |
4633a7c4 |
834 | |
835 | my $pid; |
836 | if (!defined($pid = fork)) { |
837 | logmsg "cannot fork: $!"; |
838 | return; |
839 | } elsif ($pid) { |
840 | logmsg "begat $pid"; |
6a3992aa |
841 | return; # I'm the parent |
4633a7c4 |
842 | } |
6a3992aa |
843 | # else I'm the child -- go spawn |
4633a7c4 |
844 | |
c07a80fd |
845 | open(STDIN, "<&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdin"; |
846 | open(STDOUT, ">&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdout"; |
4633a7c4 |
847 | ## open(STDERR, ">&STDOUT") || die "can't dup stdout to stderr"; |
848 | exit &$coderef(); |
54310121 |
849 | } |
4633a7c4 |
850 | |
851 | This server takes the trouble to clone off a child version via fork() for |
852 | each incoming request. That way it can handle many requests at once, |
853 | which you might not always want. Even if you don't fork(), the listen() |
854 | will allow that many pending connections. Forking servers have to be |
855 | particularly careful about cleaning up their dead children (called |
856 | "zombies" in Unix parlance), because otherwise you'll quickly fill up your |
857 | process table. |
858 | |
859 | We suggest that you use the B<-T> flag to use taint checking (see L<perlsec>) |
860 | even if we aren't running setuid or setgid. This is always a good idea |
861 | for servers and other programs run on behalf of someone else (like CGI |
862 | scripts), because it lessens the chances that people from the outside will |
863 | be able to compromise your system. |
864 | |
865 | Let's look at another TCP client. This one connects to the TCP "time" |
866 | service on a number of different machines and shows how far their clocks |
867 | differ from the system on which it's being run: |
868 | |
869 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
4633a7c4 |
870 | use strict; |
871 | use Socket; |
872 | |
873 | my $SECS_of_70_YEARS = 2208988800; |
54310121 |
874 | sub ctime { scalar localtime(shift) } |
4633a7c4 |
875 | |
54310121 |
876 | my $iaddr = gethostbyname('localhost'); |
877 | my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp'); |
878 | my $port = getservbyname('time', 'tcp'); |
4633a7c4 |
879 | my $paddr = sockaddr_in(0, $iaddr); |
880 | my($host); |
881 | |
882 | $| = 1; |
883 | printf "%-24s %8s %s\n", "localhost", 0, ctime(time()); |
884 | |
885 | foreach $host (@ARGV) { |
886 | printf "%-24s ", $host; |
887 | my $hisiaddr = inet_aton($host) || die "unknown host"; |
888 | my $hispaddr = sockaddr_in($port, $hisiaddr); |
889 | socket(SOCKET, PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!"; |
890 | connect(SOCKET, $hispaddr) || die "bind: $!"; |
891 | my $rtime = ' '; |
892 | read(SOCKET, $rtime, 4); |
893 | close(SOCKET); |
894 | my $histime = unpack("N", $rtime) - $SECS_of_70_YEARS ; |
895 | printf "%8d %s\n", $histime - time, ctime($histime); |
a0d0e21e |
896 | } |
897 | |
4633a7c4 |
898 | =head2 Unix-Domain TCP Clients and Servers |
899 | |
a2eb9003 |
900 | That's fine for Internet-domain clients and servers, but what about local |
4633a7c4 |
901 | communications? While you can use the same setup, sometimes you don't |
902 | want to. Unix-domain sockets are local to the current host, and are often |
54310121 |
903 | used internally to implement pipes. Unlike Internet domain sockets, Unix |
4633a7c4 |
904 | domain sockets can show up in the file system with an ls(1) listing. |
905 | |
5a964f20 |
906 | % ls -l /dev/log |
4633a7c4 |
907 | srw-rw-rw- 1 root 0 Oct 31 07:23 /dev/log |
a0d0e21e |
908 | |
4633a7c4 |
909 | You can test for these with Perl's B<-S> file test: |
910 | |
911 | unless ( -S '/dev/log' ) { |
3ba19564 |
912 | die "something's wicked with the log system"; |
54310121 |
913 | } |
4633a7c4 |
914 | |
915 | Here's a sample Unix-domain client: |
916 | |
917 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
4633a7c4 |
918 | use Socket; |
919 | use strict; |
920 | my ($rendezvous, $line); |
921 | |
922 | $rendezvous = shift || '/tmp/catsock'; |
923 | socket(SOCK, PF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0) || die "socket: $!"; |
9607fc9c |
924 | connect(SOCK, sockaddr_un($rendezvous)) || die "connect: $!"; |
54310121 |
925 | while (defined($line = <SOCK>)) { |
4633a7c4 |
926 | print $line; |
54310121 |
927 | } |
4633a7c4 |
928 | exit; |
929 | |
5a964f20 |
930 | And here's a corresponding server. You don't have to worry about silly |
931 | network terminators here because Unix domain sockets are guaranteed |
932 | to be on the localhost, and thus everything works right. |
4633a7c4 |
933 | |
934 | #!/usr/bin/perl -Tw |
4633a7c4 |
935 | use strict; |
936 | use Socket; |
937 | use Carp; |
938 | |
939 | BEGIN { $ENV{PATH} = '/usr/ucb:/bin' } |
5865a7df |
940 | sub spawn; # forward declaration |
5a964f20 |
941 | sub logmsg { print "$0 $$: @_ at ", scalar localtime, "\n" } |
4633a7c4 |
942 | |
943 | my $NAME = '/tmp/catsock'; |
944 | my $uaddr = sockaddr_un($NAME); |
945 | my $proto = getprotobyname('tcp'); |
946 | |
c07a80fd |
947 | socket(Server,PF_UNIX,SOCK_STREAM,0) || die "socket: $!"; |
4633a7c4 |
948 | unlink($NAME); |
c07a80fd |
949 | bind (Server, $uaddr) || die "bind: $!"; |
950 | listen(Server,SOMAXCONN) || die "listen: $!"; |
4633a7c4 |
951 | |
952 | logmsg "server started on $NAME"; |
953 | |
5a964f20 |
954 | my $waitedpid; |
955 | |
816229cf |
956 | use POSIX ":sys_wait_h"; |
5a964f20 |
957 | sub REAPER { |
816229cf |
958 | my $child; |
959 | while (($waitedpid = waitpid(-1,WNOHANG)) > 0) { |
960 | logmsg "reaped $waitedpid" . ($? ? " with exit $?" : ''); |
961 | } |
5a964f20 |
962 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; # loathe sysV |
5a964f20 |
963 | } |
964 | |
4633a7c4 |
965 | $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER; |
966 | |
5a964f20 |
967 | |
54310121 |
968 | for ( $waitedpid = 0; |
969 | accept(Client,Server) || $waitedpid; |
970 | $waitedpid = 0, close Client) |
4633a7c4 |
971 | { |
972 | next if $waitedpid; |
973 | logmsg "connection on $NAME"; |
54310121 |
974 | spawn sub { |
4633a7c4 |
975 | print "Hello there, it's now ", scalar localtime, "\n"; |
976 | exec '/usr/games/fortune' or die "can't exec fortune: $!"; |
977 | }; |
54310121 |
978 | } |
4633a7c4 |
979 | |
5865a7df |
980 | sub spawn { |
981 | my $coderef = shift; |
982 | |
983 | unless (@_ == 0 && $coderef && ref($coderef) eq 'CODE') { |
984 | confess "usage: spawn CODEREF"; |
985 | } |
986 | |
987 | my $pid; |
988 | if (!defined($pid = fork)) { |
989 | logmsg "cannot fork: $!"; |
990 | return; |
991 | } elsif ($pid) { |
992 | logmsg "begat $pid"; |
993 | return; # I'm the parent |
994 | } |
995 | # else I'm the child -- go spawn |
996 | |
997 | open(STDIN, "<&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdin"; |
998 | open(STDOUT, ">&Client") || die "can't dup client to stdout"; |
999 | ## open(STDERR, ">&STDOUT") || die "can't dup stdout to stderr"; |
1000 | exit &$coderef(); |
1001 | } |
1002 | |
4633a7c4 |
1003 | As you see, it's remarkably similar to the Internet domain TCP server, so |
1004 | much so, in fact, that we've omitted several duplicate functions--spawn(), |
1005 | logmsg(), ctime(), and REAPER()--which are exactly the same as in the |
1006 | other server. |
1007 | |
1008 | So why would you ever want to use a Unix domain socket instead of a |
1009 | simpler named pipe? Because a named pipe doesn't give you sessions. You |
1010 | can't tell one process's data from another's. With socket programming, |
1011 | you get a separate session for each client: that's why accept() takes two |
1012 | arguments. |
1013 | |
1014 | For example, let's say that you have a long running database server daemon |
1015 | that you want folks from the World Wide Web to be able to access, but only |
1016 | if they go through a CGI interface. You'd have a small, simple CGI |
1017 | program that does whatever checks and logging you feel like, and then acts |
1018 | as a Unix-domain client and connects to your private server. |
1019 | |
7b05b7e3 |
1020 | =head1 TCP Clients with IO::Socket |
1021 | |
1022 | For those preferring a higher-level interface to socket programming, the |
1023 | IO::Socket module provides an object-oriented approach. IO::Socket is |
1024 | included as part of the standard Perl distribution as of the 5.004 |
1025 | release. If you're running an earlier version of Perl, just fetch |
106325ad |
1026 | IO::Socket from CPAN, where you'll also find modules providing easy |
7b05b7e3 |
1027 | interfaces to the following systems: DNS, FTP, Ident (RFC 931), NIS and |
1028 | NISPlus, NNTP, Ping, POP3, SMTP, SNMP, SSLeay, Telnet, and Time--just |
1029 | to name a few. |
1030 | |
1031 | =head2 A Simple Client |
1032 | |
1033 | Here's a client that creates a TCP connection to the "daytime" |
1034 | service at port 13 of the host name "localhost" and prints out everything |
1035 | that the server there cares to provide. |
1036 | |
1037 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
1038 | use IO::Socket; |
1039 | $remote = IO::Socket::INET->new( |
1040 | Proto => "tcp", |
1041 | PeerAddr => "localhost", |
1042 | PeerPort => "daytime(13)", |
1043 | ) |
1044 | or die "cannot connect to daytime port at localhost"; |
1045 | while ( <$remote> ) { print } |
1046 | |
1047 | When you run this program, you should get something back that |
1048 | looks like this: |
1049 | |
1050 | Wed May 14 08:40:46 MDT 1997 |
1051 | |
1052 | Here are what those parameters to the C<new> constructor mean: |
1053 | |
13a2d996 |
1054 | =over 4 |
7b05b7e3 |
1055 | |
1056 | =item C<Proto> |
1057 | |
1058 | This is which protocol to use. In this case, the socket handle returned |
1059 | will be connected to a TCP socket, because we want a stream-oriented |
1060 | connection, that is, one that acts pretty much like a plain old file. |
1061 | Not all sockets are this of this type. For example, the UDP protocol |
1062 | can be used to make a datagram socket, used for message-passing. |
1063 | |
1064 | =item C<PeerAddr> |
1065 | |
1066 | This is the name or Internet address of the remote host the server is |
1067 | running on. We could have specified a longer name like C<"www.perl.com">, |
1068 | or an address like C<"204.148.40.9">. For demonstration purposes, we've |
1069 | used the special hostname C<"localhost">, which should always mean the |
1070 | current machine you're running on. The corresponding Internet address |
1071 | for localhost is C<"127.1">, if you'd rather use that. |
1072 | |
1073 | =item C<PeerPort> |
1074 | |
1075 | This is the service name or port number we'd like to connect to. |
1076 | We could have gotten away with using just C<"daytime"> on systems with a |
1077 | well-configured system services file,[FOOTNOTE: The system services file |
1078 | is in I</etc/services> under Unix] but just in case, we've specified the |
1079 | port number (13) in parentheses. Using just the number would also have |
1080 | worked, but constant numbers make careful programmers nervous. |
1081 | |
1082 | =back |
1083 | |
1084 | Notice how the return value from the C<new> constructor is used as |
1085 | a filehandle in the C<while> loop? That's what's called an indirect |
1086 | filehandle, a scalar variable containing a filehandle. You can use |
1087 | it the same way you would a normal filehandle. For example, you |
1088 | can read one line from it this way: |
1089 | |
1090 | $line = <$handle>; |
1091 | |
1092 | all remaining lines from is this way: |
1093 | |
1094 | @lines = <$handle>; |
1095 | |
1096 | and send a line of data to it this way: |
1097 | |
1098 | print $handle "some data\n"; |
1099 | |
1100 | =head2 A Webget Client |
1101 | |
1102 | Here's a simple client that takes a remote host to fetch a document |
1103 | from, and then a list of documents to get from that host. This is a |
1104 | more interesting client than the previous one because it first sends |
1105 | something to the server before fetching the server's response. |
1106 | |
1107 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
1108 | use IO::Socket; |
1109 | unless (@ARGV > 1) { die "usage: $0 host document ..." } |
1110 | $host = shift(@ARGV); |
5a964f20 |
1111 | $EOL = "\015\012"; |
1112 | $BLANK = $EOL x 2; |
7b05b7e3 |
1113 | foreach $document ( @ARGV ) { |
1114 | $remote = IO::Socket::INET->new( Proto => "tcp", |
1115 | PeerAddr => $host, |
1116 | PeerPort => "http(80)", |
1117 | ); |
1118 | unless ($remote) { die "cannot connect to http daemon on $host" } |
1119 | $remote->autoflush(1); |
5a964f20 |
1120 | print $remote "GET $document HTTP/1.0" . $BLANK; |
7b05b7e3 |
1121 | while ( <$remote> ) { print } |
1122 | close $remote; |
1123 | } |
1124 | |
1125 | The web server handing the "http" service, which is assumed to be at |
4375e838 |
1126 | its standard port, number 80. If the web server you're trying to |
7b05b7e3 |
1127 | connect to is at a different port (like 1080 or 8080), you should specify |
c47ff5f1 |
1128 | as the named-parameter pair, C<< PeerPort => 8080 >>. The C<autoflush> |
7b05b7e3 |
1129 | method is used on the socket because otherwise the system would buffer |
1130 | up the output we sent it. (If you're on a Mac, you'll also need to |
1131 | change every C<"\n"> in your code that sends data over the network to |
1132 | be a C<"\015\012"> instead.) |
1133 | |
1134 | Connecting to the server is only the first part of the process: once you |
1135 | have the connection, you have to use the server's language. Each server |
1136 | on the network has its own little command language that it expects as |
1137 | input. The string that we send to the server starting with "GET" is in |
1138 | HTTP syntax. In this case, we simply request each specified document. |
1139 | Yes, we really are making a new connection for each document, even though |
1140 | it's the same host. That's the way you always used to have to speak HTTP. |
1141 | Recent versions of web browsers may request that the remote server leave |
1142 | the connection open a little while, but the server doesn't have to honor |
1143 | such a request. |
1144 | |
1145 | Here's an example of running that program, which we'll call I<webget>: |
1146 | |
5a964f20 |
1147 | % webget www.perl.com /guanaco.html |
7b05b7e3 |
1148 | HTTP/1.1 404 File Not Found |
1149 | Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 18:02:32 GMT |
1150 | Server: Apache/1.2b6 |
1151 | Connection: close |
1152 | Content-type: text/html |
1153 | |
1154 | <HEAD><TITLE>404 File Not Found</TITLE></HEAD> |
1155 | <BODY><H1>File Not Found</H1> |
1156 | The requested URL /guanaco.html was not found on this server.<P> |
1157 | </BODY> |
1158 | |
1159 | Ok, so that's not very interesting, because it didn't find that |
1160 | particular document. But a long response wouldn't have fit on this page. |
1161 | |
1162 | For a more fully-featured version of this program, you should look to |
1163 | the I<lwp-request> program included with the LWP modules from CPAN. |
1164 | |
1165 | =head2 Interactive Client with IO::Socket |
1166 | |
1167 | Well, that's all fine if you want to send one command and get one answer, |
1168 | but what about setting up something fully interactive, somewhat like |
1169 | the way I<telnet> works? That way you can type a line, get the answer, |
1170 | type a line, get the answer, etc. |
1171 | |
1172 | This client is more complicated than the two we've done so far, but if |
1173 | you're on a system that supports the powerful C<fork> call, the solution |
1174 | isn't that rough. Once you've made the connection to whatever service |
1175 | you'd like to chat with, call C<fork> to clone your process. Each of |
1176 | these two identical process has a very simple job to do: the parent |
1177 | copies everything from the socket to standard output, while the child |
1178 | simultaneously copies everything from standard input to the socket. |
1179 | To accomplish the same thing using just one process would be I<much> |
1180 | harder, because it's easier to code two processes to do one thing than it |
1181 | is to code one process to do two things. (This keep-it-simple principle |
5a964f20 |
1182 | a cornerstones of the Unix philosophy, and good software engineering as |
1183 | well, which is probably why it's spread to other systems.) |
7b05b7e3 |
1184 | |
1185 | Here's the code: |
1186 | |
1187 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
1188 | use strict; |
1189 | use IO::Socket; |
1190 | my ($host, $port, $kidpid, $handle, $line); |
1191 | |
1192 | unless (@ARGV == 2) { die "usage: $0 host port" } |
1193 | ($host, $port) = @ARGV; |
1194 | |
1195 | # create a tcp connection to the specified host and port |
1196 | $handle = IO::Socket::INET->new(Proto => "tcp", |
1197 | PeerAddr => $host, |
1198 | PeerPort => $port) |
1199 | or die "can't connect to port $port on $host: $!"; |
1200 | |
1201 | $handle->autoflush(1); # so output gets there right away |
1202 | print STDERR "[Connected to $host:$port]\n"; |
1203 | |
1204 | # split the program into two processes, identical twins |
1205 | die "can't fork: $!" unless defined($kidpid = fork()); |
1206 | |
1207 | # the if{} block runs only in the parent process |
1208 | if ($kidpid) { |
1209 | # copy the socket to standard output |
1210 | while (defined ($line = <$handle>)) { |
1211 | print STDOUT $line; |
1212 | } |
1213 | kill("TERM", $kidpid); # send SIGTERM to child |
1214 | } |
1215 | # the else{} block runs only in the child process |
1216 | else { |
1217 | # copy standard input to the socket |
1218 | while (defined ($line = <STDIN>)) { |
1219 | print $handle $line; |
1220 | } |
1221 | } |
1222 | |
1223 | The C<kill> function in the parent's C<if> block is there to send a |
1224 | signal to our child process (current running in the C<else> block) |
1225 | as soon as the remote server has closed its end of the connection. |
1226 | |
7b05b7e3 |
1227 | If the remote server sends data a byte at time, and you need that |
1228 | data immediately without waiting for a newline (which might not happen), |
1229 | you may wish to replace the C<while> loop in the parent with the |
1230 | following: |
1231 | |
1232 | my $byte; |
1233 | while (sysread($handle, $byte, 1) == 1) { |
1234 | print STDOUT $byte; |
1235 | } |
1236 | |
1237 | Making a system call for each byte you want to read is not very efficient |
1238 | (to put it mildly) but is the simplest to explain and works reasonably |
1239 | well. |
1240 | |
1241 | =head1 TCP Servers with IO::Socket |
1242 | |
5a964f20 |
1243 | As always, setting up a server is little bit more involved than running a client. |
7b05b7e3 |
1244 | The model is that the server creates a special kind of socket that |
1245 | does nothing but listen on a particular port for incoming connections. |
c47ff5f1 |
1246 | It does this by calling the C<< IO::Socket::INET->new() >> method with |
7b05b7e3 |
1247 | slightly different arguments than the client did. |
1248 | |
13a2d996 |
1249 | =over 4 |
7b05b7e3 |
1250 | |
1251 | =item Proto |
1252 | |
1253 | This is which protocol to use. Like our clients, we'll |
1254 | still specify C<"tcp"> here. |
1255 | |
1256 | =item LocalPort |
1257 | |
1258 | We specify a local |
1259 | port in the C<LocalPort> argument, which we didn't do for the client. |
1260 | This is service name or port number for which you want to be the |
1261 | server. (Under Unix, ports under 1024 are restricted to the |
1262 | superuser.) In our sample, we'll use port 9000, but you can use |
1263 | any port that's not currently in use on your system. If you try |
1264 | to use one already in used, you'll get an "Address already in use" |
19799a22 |
1265 | message. Under Unix, the C<netstat -a> command will show |
7b05b7e3 |
1266 | which services current have servers. |
1267 | |
1268 | =item Listen |
1269 | |
1270 | The C<Listen> parameter is set to the maximum number of |
1271 | pending connections we can accept until we turn away incoming clients. |
1272 | Think of it as a call-waiting queue for your telephone. |
1273 | The low-level Socket module has a special symbol for the system maximum, which |
1274 | is SOMAXCONN. |
1275 | |
1276 | =item Reuse |
1277 | |
1278 | The C<Reuse> parameter is needed so that we restart our server |
1279 | manually without waiting a few minutes to allow system buffers to |
1280 | clear out. |
1281 | |
1282 | =back |
1283 | |
1284 | Once the generic server socket has been created using the parameters |
1285 | listed above, the server then waits for a new client to connect |
d1be9408 |
1286 | to it. The server blocks in the C<accept> method, which eventually accepts a |
1287 | bidirectional connection from the remote client. (Make sure to autoflush |
7b05b7e3 |
1288 | this handle to circumvent buffering.) |
1289 | |
1290 | To add to user-friendliness, our server prompts the user for commands. |
1291 | Most servers don't do this. Because of the prompt without a newline, |
1292 | you'll have to use the C<sysread> variant of the interactive client above. |
1293 | |
1294 | This server accepts one of five different commands, sending output |
1295 | back to the client. Note that unlike most network servers, this one |
1296 | only handles one incoming client at a time. Multithreaded servers are |
f83494b9 |
1297 | covered in Chapter 6 of the Camel. |
7b05b7e3 |
1298 | |
1299 | Here's the code. We'll |
1300 | |
1301 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
1302 | use IO::Socket; |
1303 | use Net::hostent; # for OO version of gethostbyaddr |
1304 | |
1305 | $PORT = 9000; # pick something not in use |
1306 | |
1307 | $server = IO::Socket::INET->new( Proto => 'tcp', |
1308 | LocalPort => $PORT, |
1309 | Listen => SOMAXCONN, |
1310 | Reuse => 1); |
1311 | |
1312 | die "can't setup server" unless $server; |
1313 | print "[Server $0 accepting clients]\n"; |
1314 | |
1315 | while ($client = $server->accept()) { |
1316 | $client->autoflush(1); |
1317 | print $client "Welcome to $0; type help for command list.\n"; |
1318 | $hostinfo = gethostbyaddr($client->peeraddr); |
1319 | printf "[Connect from %s]\n", $hostinfo->name || $client->peerhost; |
1320 | print $client "Command? "; |
1321 | while ( <$client>) { |
1322 | next unless /\S/; # blank line |
1323 | if (/quit|exit/i) { last; } |
1324 | elsif (/date|time/i) { printf $client "%s\n", scalar localtime; } |
1325 | elsif (/who/i ) { print $client `who 2>&1`; } |
1326 | elsif (/cookie/i ) { print $client `/usr/games/fortune 2>&1`; } |
1327 | elsif (/motd/i ) { print $client `cat /etc/motd 2>&1`; } |
1328 | else { |
1329 | print $client "Commands: quit date who cookie motd\n"; |
1330 | } |
1331 | } continue { |
1332 | print $client "Command? "; |
1333 | } |
1334 | close $client; |
1335 | } |
1336 | |
1337 | =head1 UDP: Message Passing |
4633a7c4 |
1338 | |
1339 | Another kind of client-server setup is one that uses not connections, but |
1340 | messages. UDP communications involve much lower overhead but also provide |
1341 | less reliability, as there are no promises that messages will arrive at |
1342 | all, let alone in order and unmangled. Still, UDP offers some advantages |
1343 | over TCP, including being able to "broadcast" or "multicast" to a whole |
1344 | bunch of destination hosts at once (usually on your local subnet). If you |
1345 | find yourself overly concerned about reliability and start building checks |
6a3992aa |
1346 | into your message system, then you probably should use just TCP to start |
4633a7c4 |
1347 | with. |
1348 | |
90034919 |
1349 | Note that UDP datagrams are I<not> a bytestream and should not be treated |
1350 | as such. This makes using I/O mechanisms with internal buffering |
1351 | like stdio (i.e. print() and friends) especially cumbersome. Use syswrite(), |
1352 | or better send(), like in the example below. |
1353 | |
4633a7c4 |
1354 | Here's a UDP program similar to the sample Internet TCP client given |
7b05b7e3 |
1355 | earlier. However, instead of checking one host at a time, the UDP version |
4633a7c4 |
1356 | will check many of them asynchronously by simulating a multicast and then |
1357 | using select() to do a timed-out wait for I/O. To do something similar |
1358 | with TCP, you'd have to use a different socket handle for each host. |
1359 | |
1360 | #!/usr/bin/perl -w |
1361 | use strict; |
4633a7c4 |
1362 | use Socket; |
1363 | use Sys::Hostname; |
1364 | |
54310121 |
1365 | my ( $count, $hisiaddr, $hispaddr, $histime, |
1366 | $host, $iaddr, $paddr, $port, $proto, |
4633a7c4 |
1367 | $rin, $rout, $rtime, $SECS_of_70_YEARS); |
1368 | |
1369 | $SECS_of_70_YEARS = 2208988800; |
1370 | |
1371 | $iaddr = gethostbyname(hostname()); |
1372 | $proto = getprotobyname('udp'); |
1373 | $port = getservbyname('time', 'udp'); |
1374 | $paddr = sockaddr_in(0, $iaddr); # 0 means let kernel pick |
1375 | |
1376 | socket(SOCKET, PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, $proto) || die "socket: $!"; |
1377 | bind(SOCKET, $paddr) || die "bind: $!"; |
1378 | |
1379 | $| = 1; |
1380 | printf "%-12s %8s %s\n", "localhost", 0, scalar localtime time; |
1381 | $count = 0; |
1382 | for $host (@ARGV) { |
1383 | $count++; |
1384 | $hisiaddr = inet_aton($host) || die "unknown host"; |
1385 | $hispaddr = sockaddr_in($port, $hisiaddr); |
1386 | defined(send(SOCKET, 0, 0, $hispaddr)) || die "send $host: $!"; |
1387 | } |
1388 | |
1389 | $rin = ''; |
1390 | vec($rin, fileno(SOCKET), 1) = 1; |
1391 | |
1392 | # timeout after 10.0 seconds |
1393 | while ($count && select($rout = $rin, undef, undef, 10.0)) { |
1394 | $rtime = ''; |
1395 | ($hispaddr = recv(SOCKET, $rtime, 4, 0)) || die "recv: $!"; |
1396 | ($port, $hisiaddr) = sockaddr_in($hispaddr); |
1397 | $host = gethostbyaddr($hisiaddr, AF_INET); |
1398 | $histime = unpack("N", $rtime) - $SECS_of_70_YEARS ; |
1399 | printf "%-12s ", $host; |
1400 | printf "%8d %s\n", $histime - time, scalar localtime($histime); |
1401 | $count--; |
1402 | } |
1403 | |
90034919 |
1404 | Note that this example does not include any retries and may consequently |
1405 | fail to contact a reachable host. The most prominent reason for this |
1406 | is congestion of the queues on the sending host if the number of |
a31a806a |
1407 | list of hosts to contact is sufficiently large. |
90034919 |
1408 | |
4633a7c4 |
1409 | =head1 SysV IPC |
1410 | |
1411 | While System V IPC isn't so widely used as sockets, it still has some |
1412 | interesting uses. You can't, however, effectively use SysV IPC or |
1413 | Berkeley mmap() to have shared memory so as to share a variable amongst |
1414 | several processes. That's because Perl would reallocate your string when |
1415 | you weren't wanting it to. |
1416 | |
54310121 |
1417 | Here's a small example showing shared memory usage. |
a0d0e21e |
1418 | |
41d6edb2 |
1419 | use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_PRIVATE IPC_RMID S_IRWXU); |
0ade1984 |
1420 | |
a0d0e21e |
1421 | $size = 2000; |
41d6edb2 |
1422 | $id = shmget(IPC_PRIVATE, $size, S_IRWXU) || die "$!"; |
1423 | print "shm key $id\n"; |
a0d0e21e |
1424 | |
1425 | $message = "Message #1"; |
41d6edb2 |
1426 | shmwrite($id, $message, 0, 60) || die "$!"; |
0ade1984 |
1427 | print "wrote: '$message'\n"; |
41d6edb2 |
1428 | shmread($id, $buff, 0, 60) || die "$!"; |
0ade1984 |
1429 | print "read : '$buff'\n"; |
a0d0e21e |
1430 | |
0ade1984 |
1431 | # the buffer of shmread is zero-character end-padded. |
1432 | substr($buff, index($buff, "\0")) = ''; |
1433 | print "un" unless $buff eq $message; |
1434 | print "swell\n"; |
a0d0e21e |
1435 | |
41d6edb2 |
1436 | print "deleting shm $id\n"; |
1437 | shmctl($id, IPC_RMID, 0) || die "$!"; |
a0d0e21e |
1438 | |
1439 | Here's an example of a semaphore: |
1440 | |
0ade1984 |
1441 | use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_CREAT); |
1442 | |
a0d0e21e |
1443 | $IPC_KEY = 1234; |
41d6edb2 |
1444 | $id = semget($IPC_KEY, 10, 0666 | IPC_CREAT ) || die "$!"; |
1445 | print "shm key $id\n"; |
a0d0e21e |
1446 | |
a2eb9003 |
1447 | Put this code in a separate file to be run in more than one process. |
a0d0e21e |
1448 | Call the file F<take>: |
1449 | |
1450 | # create a semaphore |
1451 | |
1452 | $IPC_KEY = 1234; |
41d6edb2 |
1453 | $id = semget($IPC_KEY, 0 , 0 ); |
1454 | die if !defined($id); |
a0d0e21e |
1455 | |
1456 | $semnum = 0; |
1457 | $semflag = 0; |
1458 | |
1459 | # 'take' semaphore |
1460 | # wait for semaphore to be zero |
1461 | $semop = 0; |
41d6edb2 |
1462 | $opstring1 = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag); |
a0d0e21e |
1463 | |
1464 | # Increment the semaphore count |
1465 | $semop = 1; |
41d6edb2 |
1466 | $opstring2 = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag); |
a0d0e21e |
1467 | $opstring = $opstring1 . $opstring2; |
1468 | |
41d6edb2 |
1469 | semop($id,$opstring) || die "$!"; |
a0d0e21e |
1470 | |
a2eb9003 |
1471 | Put this code in a separate file to be run in more than one process. |
a0d0e21e |
1472 | Call this file F<give>: |
1473 | |
4633a7c4 |
1474 | # 'give' the semaphore |
a0d0e21e |
1475 | # run this in the original process and you will see |
1476 | # that the second process continues |
1477 | |
1478 | $IPC_KEY = 1234; |
41d6edb2 |
1479 | $id = semget($IPC_KEY, 0, 0); |
1480 | die if !defined($id); |
a0d0e21e |
1481 | |
1482 | $semnum = 0; |
1483 | $semflag = 0; |
1484 | |
1485 | # Decrement the semaphore count |
1486 | $semop = -1; |
41d6edb2 |
1487 | $opstring = pack("s!s!s!", $semnum, $semop, $semflag); |
a0d0e21e |
1488 | |
41d6edb2 |
1489 | semop($id,$opstring) || die "$!"; |
a0d0e21e |
1490 | |
7b05b7e3 |
1491 | The SysV IPC code above was written long ago, and it's definitely |
0ade1984 |
1492 | clunky looking. For a more modern look, see the IPC::SysV module |
1493 | which is included with Perl starting from Perl 5.005. |
4633a7c4 |
1494 | |
41d6edb2 |
1495 | A small example demonstrating SysV message queues: |
1496 | |
1497 | use IPC::SysV qw(IPC_PRIVATE IPC_RMID IPC_CREAT S_IRWXU); |
1498 | |
1499 | my $id = msgget(IPC_PRIVATE, IPC_CREAT | S_IRWXU); |
1500 | |
1501 | my $sent = "message"; |
1502 | my $type = 1234; |
1503 | my $rcvd; |
1504 | my $type_rcvd; |
1505 | |
1506 | if (defined $id) { |
1507 | if (msgsnd($id, pack("l! a*", $type_sent, $sent), 0)) { |
1508 | if (msgrcv($id, $rcvd, 60, 0, 0)) { |
1509 | ($type_rcvd, $rcvd) = unpack("l! a*", $rcvd); |
1510 | if ($rcvd eq $sent) { |
1511 | print "okay\n"; |
1512 | } else { |
1513 | print "not okay\n"; |
1514 | } |
1515 | } else { |
1516 | die "# msgrcv failed\n"; |
1517 | } |
1518 | } else { |
1519 | die "# msgsnd failed\n"; |
1520 | } |
1521 | msgctl($id, IPC_RMID, 0) || die "# msgctl failed: $!\n"; |
1522 | } else { |
1523 | die "# msgget failed\n"; |
1524 | } |
1525 | |
4633a7c4 |
1526 | =head1 NOTES |
1527 | |
5a964f20 |
1528 | Most of these routines quietly but politely return C<undef> when they |
1529 | fail instead of causing your program to die right then and there due to |
1530 | an uncaught exception. (Actually, some of the new I<Socket> conversion |
1531 | functions croak() on bad arguments.) It is therefore essential to |
1532 | check return values from these functions. Always begin your socket |
1533 | programs this way for optimal success, and don't forget to add B<-T> |
1534 | taint checking flag to the #! line for servers: |
4633a7c4 |
1535 | |
5a964f20 |
1536 | #!/usr/bin/perl -Tw |
4633a7c4 |
1537 | use strict; |
1538 | use sigtrap; |
1539 | use Socket; |
1540 | |
1541 | =head1 BUGS |
1542 | |
1543 | All these routines create system-specific portability problems. As noted |
1544 | elsewhere, Perl is at the mercy of your C libraries for much of its system |
1545 | behaviour. It's probably safest to assume broken SysV semantics for |
6a3992aa |
1546 | signals and to stick with simple TCP and UDP socket operations; e.g., don't |
a2eb9003 |
1547 | try to pass open file descriptors over a local UDP datagram socket if you |
4633a7c4 |
1548 | want your code to stand a chance of being portable. |
1549 | |
5a964f20 |
1550 | As mentioned in the signals section, because few vendors provide C |
1551 | libraries that are safely re-entrant, the prudent programmer will do |
1552 | little else within a handler beyond setting a numeric variable that |
1553 | already exists; or, if locked into a slow (restarting) system call, |
1554 | using die() to raise an exception and longjmp(3) out. In fact, even |
1555 | these may in some cases cause a core dump. It's probably best to avoid |
a11adca0 |
1556 | signals except where they are absolutely inevitable. This |
5a964f20 |
1557 | will be addressed in a future release of Perl. |
4633a7c4 |
1558 | |
1559 | =head1 AUTHOR |
1560 | |
1561 | Tom Christiansen, with occasional vestiges of Larry Wall's original |
7b05b7e3 |
1562 | version and suggestions from the Perl Porters. |
4633a7c4 |
1563 | |
1564 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
1565 | |
7b05b7e3 |
1566 | There's a lot more to networking than this, but this should get you |
1567 | started. |
1568 | |
5a964f20 |
1569 | For intrepid programmers, the indispensable textbook is I<Unix Network |
1570 | Programming> by W. Richard Stevens (published by Addison-Wesley). Note |
1571 | that most books on networking address networking from the perspective of |
1572 | a C programmer; translation to Perl is left as an exercise for the reader. |
7b05b7e3 |
1573 | |
1574 | The IO::Socket(3) manpage describes the object library, and the Socket(3) |
1575 | manpage describes the low-level interface to sockets. Besides the obvious |
1576 | functions in L<perlfunc>, you should also check out the F<modules> file |
1577 | at your nearest CPAN site. (See L<perlmodlib> or best yet, the F<Perl |
1578 | FAQ> for a description of what CPAN is and where to get it.) |
1579 | |
4633a7c4 |
1580 | Section 5 of the F<modules> file is devoted to "Networking, Device Control |
6a3992aa |
1581 | (modems), and Interprocess Communication", and contains numerous unbundled |
4633a7c4 |
1582 | modules numerous networking modules, Chat and Expect operations, CGI |
1583 | programming, DCE, FTP, IPC, NNTP, Proxy, Ptty, RPC, SNMP, SMTP, Telnet, |
1584 | Threads, and ToolTalk--just to name a few. |