Real parallelism in Linux shell - linux

I am trying to have real parallelism on Linux shell, but I can't achieve it.
I have two programs. Allones, that only prints '1' character, and allzeros, that only prints 0 characters.
When I execute "./allones & ./allzeros &", I get big prints of '0's, and big prints of '1's, that mix in big chunks (e.g. 1111....111000...0000111...111000...000"). My processor has 8 cores.
However, when I executed my own program on a multi-core FPGA (with no OS), (If I distribute programs on different cores) I get something like "011000101000011010...".
How can I run it on Linux to get a result similar to what I get on a multi-core FPGA?

Sounds like you're experiencing libc's default line buffering:
Here's a test program spam.c:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
while(1) {
printf("%s", argv[1]);
}
}
We can run it with:
$ ./spam 0 & ./spam 1 & sleep 1; killall spam
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111(...)000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000(...)
On my systems, each block is exactly 1024 bytes long, strongly hinting at a buffering issue.
Here's the same code with a fflush to prevent buffering:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
while(1) {
printf("%s", argv[1]);
fflush(stdout);
}
}
This is the new output:
100111001100110011001100110011001100110011100111001110011011001100110011001100110011001100110011001100110011001100110011001100011000110001100110001100100110011001100111001101100110011001100110011001100110000000000110010011000110011

Related

cygwin-backed exe killed by taskkill, will always return 0, any work-around?

I find such a problem. Assuming I have a C program sleepret.c, compiled with gcc inside cygwin.
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int sec = 0;
if(argc>1)
sec = atoi(argv[1]);
sleep(sec);
return sec & 1;
}
I'm using cygwin1.dll 3.1.4 on Window 8.1.
Now, run sleepret.exe 10. During its sleeping, from another cygwin terminal, I use ps to identify its PID and kill -9 <pid>, then the sleepret's caller can identify its return value(process exit code) is 143 via $?. That's utterly correct behavior, so far so good.
However, if I kill sleepint.exe with Windows native taskkill /F /IM sleepint.exe, the $? will always be 0, which means, sleepint's caller will not be able to know whether sleepint results in success.
Then, how to workaround this issue?

ftrace: system crash when changing current_tracer from function_graph via echo

I have been playing with ftrace recently to monitor some behavior characteristics of my system. I've been handling switching the trace on/off via a small script. After running the script, my system would crash and reboot itself. Initially, I believed that there might be an error with the script itself, but I have since determined that the crash and reboot is a result of echoing some tracer to /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/current_tracer when current_tracer is set to function_graph.
That is, the following sequence of commands will produce the crash/reboot:
echo "function_graph" > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/current_tracer
echo "function" > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/current_tracer
Durning the reboot after the crash caused by the above echo statements, I see a lot of output that reads:
clearing orphaned inode <inode>
I tried to reproduce this problem by replacing the current_tracer value from function_graph to something else in a C program:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int openCurrentTracer()
{
int fd = open("/sys/kernel/debug/tracing/current_tracer", O_WRONLY);
if(fd < 0)
exit(1);
return fd;
}
int writeTracer(int fd, char* tracer)
{
if(write(fd, tracer, strlen(tracer)) != strlen(tracer)) {
printf("Failure writing %s\n", tracer);
return 0;
}
return 1;
}
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
int fd = openCurrentTracer();
char* blockTracer = "blk";
if(!writeTracer(fd, blockTracer))
return 1;
close(fd);
fd = openCurrentTracer();
char* graphTracer = "function_graph";
if(!writeTracer(fd, graphTracer))
return 1;
close(fd);
printf("Preparing to fail!\n");
fd = openCurrentTracer();
if(!writeTracer(fd, blockTracer))
return 1;
close(fd);
return 0;
}
Oddly enough, the C program does not crash my system.
I originally encountered this problem while using Ubuntu (Unity environment) 16.04 LTS and confirmed it to be an issue on the 4.4.0 and 4.5.5 kernels. I have also tested this issue on a machine running Ubuntu (Mate environment) 15.10, on the 4.2.0 and 4.5.5 kernels, but was unable to reproduce the issue. This has only confused me further.
Can anyone give me insight on what is happening? Specifically, why would I be able to write() but not echo to /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/current_tracer?
Update
As vielmetti pointed out, others have had a similar issue (as seen here).
The ftrace_disable_ftrace_graph_caller() modifies jmp instruction at
ftrace_graph_call assuming it's a 5 bytes near jmp (e9 ).
However it's a short jmp consisting of 2 bytes only (eb ). And
ftrace_stub() is located just below the ftrace_graph_caller so
modification above breaks the instruction resulting in kernel oops on
the ftrace_stub() with the invalid opcode like below:
The patch (shown below) solved the echo issue, but I still do not understand why echo was breaking previously when write() was not.
diff --git a/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S b/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
index ed48a9f465f8..e13a695c3084 100644
--- a/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
+++ b/arch/x86/kernel/mcount_64.S
## -182,7 +182,8 ## GLOBAL(ftrace_graph_call)
jmp ftrace_stub
#endif
-GLOBAL(ftrace_stub)
+/* This is weak to keep gas from relaxing the jumps */
+WEAK(ftrace_stub)
retq
END(ftrace_caller)
via https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/5/16/493
Looks like you are not the only person to notice this behavior. I see
https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/5/13/327
as a report of the problem, and
https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/5/16/493
as a patch to the kernel that addresses it. Reading through that whole thread it appears that the issue is some compiler optimizations.

One file input to two program in script

Hi I have a script that run two program
#Script file
./prog1
./prog2
prog1 is a C program
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv){
printf("prog1 running\n");
int tmp;
scanf("%d", &tmp);
printf("%d\n", tmp+10);
printf("prog1 ended\n");
return 0;
}
prog 2 is a C program as well
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv){
printf("prog2 running\n");
int tmp;
scanf("%d\n", &tmp);
printf("%d\n", tmp+10);
printf("prog2 ended\n");
return 0;
}
I run the command
./script < file
where file is
123
456
The output is
prog1 running
133
prog1 ended
prog2 running
10
prog2 ended
It seems like prog2 did not get the input from file, what is happening under the hood?
Will it be possible that prog2 took "\n" instead of a number?
Your script should be this:
#!/bin/bash
exec 3<&1
tee >(./prog2 >&3) | ./prog1
This use the tee command to duplicate stdin and the recent >() bash feature to open a temporary filedescriptor. (the use of filedesriptor 3 is done to split the stdout without parallelism).
See this answer to read the whole story.
scanf reads buffered input. So when your first program reads from stdin, it speculatively reads ahead all the available input to make future reads from stdin faster (through avoiding having to make so many system calls). When the second program runs, there's no input left, and (since you failed to check the result of scanf()) you end up with 0 in tmp.
You should be able to modify the buffering strategy in your application (at the expense of speed) using the setvbuf() standard function.

Write log in stdout (MPI)

I using MPI on Windows with Cygwin. I try to use critical section for write log some one, but what I would not do I always get a mixed log.
setbuf(stdout, 0);
int totalProcess;
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &totalProcess);
int processRank;
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &processRank);
int rank = 0;
while (rank < totalProcess) {
if (processRank == rank) {
printf("-----%d-----\n", rank);
printf("%s", logBuffer);
printf("-----%d-----\n", rank);
//fflush(stdout);
}
rank ++;
MPI_Barrier(MPI_COMM_WORLD);
}
I run mpi at single machine (emulation mode):
mpirun -v -np 2 ./bin/main.out
I want dedicated space log per process, what I do wrong?
(When I wrote it I think it would not work correctly...)
This is the same problem asked about here; there is enough buffering going on at various different layers that there's no guarantee that the final output will reflect the order that the individual processes wrote, although in practice it can work for "small enough" outputs.
But if the goal is something like a logfile, MPI-IO provides mechanisms for you to write to a file in exactly such a way - MPI_File_write_ordered, which writes output in order of processors to the file. As an example:
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "mpi.h"
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
int rank, size;
MPI_File logfile;
char mylogbuffer[1024];
char line[128];
MPI_Init(&argc, &argv);
MPI_Comm_size(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &size);
MPI_Comm_rank(MPI_COMM_WORLD, &rank);
MPI_File_open(MPI_COMM_WORLD, "logfile.txt", MPI_MODE_WRONLY | MPI_MODE_CREATE,
MPI_INFO_NULL, &logfile);
/* write initial message */
sprintf(mylogbuffer,"-----%d-----\n", rank);
sprintf(line,"Message from proc %d\n", rank);
for (int i=0; i<rank; i++)
strcat(mylogbuffer, line);
sprintf(line,"-----%d-----\n", rank);
strcat(mylogbuffer, line);
MPI_File_write_ordered(logfile, mylogbuffer, strlen(mylogbuffer), MPI_CHAR, MPI_STATUS_IGNORE);
/* write another message */
sprintf(mylogbuffer,"-----%d-----\nAll done\n-----%d-----\n", rank, rank);
MPI_File_write_ordered(logfile, mylogbuffer, strlen(mylogbuffer), MPI_CHAR, MPI_STATUS_IGNORE);
MPI_File_close(&logfile);
MPI_Finalize();
return 0;
}
Compiling and running gives:
$ mpicc -o log log.c -std=c99
$ mpirun -np 5 ./log
$ cat logfile.txt
-----0-----
-----0-----
-----1-----
Message from proc 1
-----1-----
-----2-----
Message from proc 2
Message from proc 2
-----2-----
-----3-----
Message from proc 3
Message from proc 3
Message from proc 3
-----3-----
-----4-----
Message from proc 4
Message from proc 4
Message from proc 4
Message from proc 4
-----4-----
-----0-----
All done
-----0-----
-----1-----
All done
-----1-----
-----2-----
All done
-----2-----
-----3-----
All done
-----3-----
-----4-----
All done
-----4-----

Externally disabling signals for a Linux program

On Linux, is it possible to somehow disable signaling for programs externally... that is, without modifying their source code?
Context:
I'm calling a C (and also a Java) program from within a bash script on Linux. I don't want any interruptions for my bash script, and for the other programs that the script launches (as foreground processes).
While I can use a...
trap '' INT
... in my bash script to disable the Ctrl C signal, this works only when the program control happens to be in the bash code. That is, if I press Ctrl C while the C program is running, the C program gets interrupted and it exits! This C program is doing some critical operation because of which I don't want it be interrupted. I don't have access to the source code of this C program, so signal handling inside the C program is out of question.
#!/bin/bash
trap 'echo You pressed Ctrl C' INT
# A C program to emulate a real-world, long-running program,
# which I don't want to be interrupted, and for which I
# don't have the source code!
#
# File: y.c
# To build: gcc -o y y.c
#
# #include <stdio.h>
# int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
# printf("Performing a critical operation...\n");
# for(;;); // Do nothing forever.
# printf("Performing a critical operation... done.\n");
# }
./y
Regards,
/HS
The process signal mask is inherited across exec, so you can simply write a small wrapper program that blocks SIGINT and executes the target:
#include <signal.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
sigset_t sigs;
sigemptyset(&sigs);
sigaddset(&sigs, SIGINT);
sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, &sigs, 0);
if (argc > 1) {
execvp(argv[1], argv + 1);
perror("execv");
} else {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <command> [args...]\n", argv[0]);
}
return 1;
}
If you compile this program to noint, you would just execute ./noint ./y.
As ephemient notes in comments, the signal disposition is also inherited, so you can have the wrapper ignore the signal instead of blocking it:
#include <signal.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct sigaction sa = { 0 };
sa.sa_handler = SIG_IGN;
sigaction(SIGINT, &sa, 0);
if (argc > 1) {
execvp(argv[1], argv + 1);
perror("execv");
} else {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <command> [args...]\n", argv[0]);
}
return 1;
}
(and of course for a belt-and-braces approach, you could do both).
The "trap" command is local to this process, never applies to children.
To really trap the signal, you have to hack it using a LD_PRELOAD hook. This is non-trival task (you have to compile a loadable with _init(), sigaction() inside), so I won't include the full code here. You can find an example for SIGSEGV on Phack Volume 0x0b, Issue 0x3a, Phile #0x03.
Alternativlly, try the nohup and tail trick.
nohup your_command &
tail -F nohup.out
I would suggest that your C (and Java) application needs rewriting so that it can handle an exception, what happens if it really does need to be interrupted, power fails, etc...
I that fails, J-16 is right on the money. Does the user need to interract with the process, or just see the output (do they even need to see the output?)
The solutions explained above are not working for me, even by chaining the both commands proposed by Caf.
However, I finally succeeded in getting the expected behavior this way :
#!/bin/zsh
setopt MONITOR
TRAPINT() { print AAA }
print 1
( ./child & ; wait)
print 2
If I press Ctrl-C while child is running, it will wait that it exits, then will print AAA and 2. child will not receive any signals.
The subshell is used to prevent the PID from being shown.
And sorry... this is for zsh though the question is for bash, but I do not know bash enough to provide an equivalent script.
This is example code of enabling signals like Ctrl+C for programs which block it.
fixControlC.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
int sigaddset(sigset_t *set, int signo) {
printf("int sigaddset(sigset_t *set=%p, int signo=%d)\n", set, signo);
return 0;
}
Compile it:
gcc -fPIC -shared -o fixControlC.so fixControlC.c
Run it:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. LD_PRELOAD=fixControlC.so mysqld

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