How to drop memory cache periodically in Linux? - linux

Working on a system measurement project and it requires me to drop a cache periodically to get an accurate number (since having cache there would alter the results). Currently I can manually drop the cache by using:
echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches
However, I want it to automatically drop every microsecond. What command should I use?

You could create you own command to do that, i.e. write a program to do that. For example, you could do something like:
while (1) {
if ((fp = fopen("/proc/sys/vm/drop_caches", "r")) == NULL) {
/* error handler */
}
fprintf(fp, "3\n");
fclose(fp);
nanosleep(...); /* See nanosleep(2) */
}
in your program, and made it a daemon.

Related

Deleting a file with I/O in progress: Is it a filesystem and/or an OS feature?

I'm writing a shell script that will run on Linux but can operate on files sitting on a mounted partition,
that may or may not have an ext* file-system. It could eg be NTFS, FAT32, or any inode- or non-inode-based system;
that could get further re-mounted on other boxes running non-Linux OSes like Windows or Mac.
Further, my script needs to be able to delete a file on this shared, arbitrarily formatted partition (even while the file's being read from or written to) by a remote process running on Linux, Windows, or Mac boxes
Questions:
Is the ability to be able to delete a file in use a feature of,
a. only the file-system?
b. or, only the OS?
c. or, a combo of both?
(Extension of Q1) Does it matter if the processe doing I/O on the file and the one deleting the file are both local or remote?
Does it matter if the processes doing I/O on the file and the one
deleting the file are both local or remote?
interesting - how remote system can access file (open, read-write data, delete) on windows direct ? really this impossible. we need some agent (LANMan server), running in the local system, which will be by remote commands (send say by Network Redirector) do local operations on file. so from file system view - all operations always local.
Is the ability to be able to delete a file in use a feature of
this is implemented of course by file system driver, but this driver written for concrete OS and based on it rules. while file system data on disk is have common format (as result drive formatted(and written files) in one OS, can be read from another OS) - how file system driver process requests, open, read, write, delete files - this is OS specific. different for different OS. based on it rules. so data format on disk is common and only depend from file system. but how this data read/write/delete - already os specific.
in windows we have next rules for delete files:
Normally a file marked for deletion is not actually deleted until all
open handles for the file have been closed and the link count for the
file is zero. When marking a file for deletion using
FILE_DISPOSITION_POSIX_SEMANTICS, the link gets removed from the
visible namespace as soon as the POSIX delete handle has been closed,
but the file’s data streams remain accessible by other existing
handles until the last handle has been closed.
so in general file will be not deleted, until the last handle to it will be closed. file became not accessible after we try delete it - can not more open it (we get error A non close operation has been requested of a file object with a delete pending. if try do this, after file marked to delete). but if file was already opened - we can still work with it by this handle. also file can not be deleted if section exist on file - will be error An attempt has been made to remove a file or directory that cannot be deleted.
begin from win10 redstone1 build exist FILE_DISPOSITION_POSIX_SEMANTICS flag which let removed file name from the visible namespace when delete handle has been closed, but the file’s data streams remain accessible by other existing handles until the last handle has been closed
windows code test demo: (FILE_DISPOSITION_POSIX_SEMANTICS supported by ntfs begin only from _WIN32_WINNT_WIN10_RS1. FileDispositionInfoEx information class also supported begin from _WIN32_WINNT_WIN10_RS1 only. in previous build we simply got not implemented error)
void print_error(PCSTR name)
{
PWSTR sz;
NTSTATUS status = RtlGetLastNtStatus();
if (FormatMessageW(FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER|FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_HMODULE,
GetModuleHandle(L"ntdll"), status, 0, (PWSTR)&sz, 0, 0))
{
DbgPrint("%s=%x\n%S\n", name, status, sz);
LocalFree(sz);
}
}
HANDLE OpenFile(PCWSTR lpFileName, DWORD dwDesiredAccess)
{
HANDLE hFile = CreateFileW(lpFileName, dwDesiredAccess, FILE_SHARE_VALID_FLAGS, 0, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, 0);
if (hFile == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
{
print_error("OpenFile");
return 0;
}
return hFile;
}
void ReadTest(HANDLE hFile)
{
if (hFile)
{
ULONG dwBytes;
if (ReadFile(hFile, &dwBytes, sizeof(dwBytes), &dwBytes, 0))
{
DbgPrint("ReadFile=OK\n");
}
else
{
print_error("ReadFile");
}
}
}
void DeleteTest(PCWSTR lpFileName)
{
HANDLE hFile1, hFile2, hFile3;
if (hFile1 = OpenFile(lpFileName, DELETE))
{
hFile2 = OpenFile(lpFileName, FILE_GENERIC_READ);
FILE_DISPOSITION_INFO_EX fdi = { FILE_DISPOSITION_DELETE | FILE_DISPOSITION_POSIX_SEMANTICS };
if (!SetFileInformationByHandle(hFile1, FileDispositionInfoEx, &fdi, sizeof(fdi)))
{
print_error("SetFileInformationByHandle");
}
// file already not accessible here (open must fail) but visible
if (hFile3 = OpenFile(lpFileName, FILE_GENERIC_READ))
{
CloseHandle(hFile3);
}
ReadTest(hFile2);
// win10 rs1: file removed from the visible namespace here
CloseHandle(hFile1);
// are file still visible ?
if (hFile3 = OpenFile(lpFileName, FILE_GENERIC_READ))
{
CloseHandle(hFile3);
}
// are possible create new file with this name &
hFile3 = CreateFileW(lpFileName, DELETE,
FILE_SHARE_VALID_FLAGS, 0, CREATE_NEW, FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE, 0);
if (hFile3 == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
{
print_error("CreateFile");
}
else
{
CloseHandle(hFile3);
DbgPrint("CreateFile OK\n");
}
ReadTest(hFile2);
if (hFile2)
{
CloseHandle(hFile2);
}
}
}
and output
OpenFile=c0000056
A non close operation has been requested of a file object with a delete pending.
ReadFile=OK
OpenFile=c0000034
Object Name not found.
CreateFile OK
ReadFile=OK
it depends how do you define filesystem and OS. Generally, I understand under filesystem the way how the data storage is organized on a device. OS is then responsible for the I/O of data and files. Particularly, if your script wants to delete a file it calls some utility like rm and provides name of the file. This utility is a program which makes an appropriate system call. This system call is a part of operating system which is executed in the privileged mode. It realizes what and how to do (e.g. which drivers should be used to mark HDD blocks as free on a particular drive or maybe some remote procedure should be called or samba server involved etc.)
So, to give an answer to your question 1, I would tend to the answer b.

Define new socket option for use in TCP kernel code

I'm trying to add some functionality to the TCP kernel code (in tcp_input.c). I want the code I've implemented to run only in certain situations. I want to add a control flag, which can be set from a user-space application.
I (think I) need to add a new socket option, so that I can accomplish the following with setsockopt().
kernel space:
if(tcp_flags.simulate_ecn_signal) {
// run code for simulating ecn signal
}
user space:
if(tcp_info.tcpi_retransmits > LIMIT) {
u8 simulate_ecn_signal = 1;
// set the flag, so that the kernel code runs
if (setsockopt(sock, IPPROTO_TCP, TCP_FLAGS, &simulate_ecn_signal, sizeof(simulate_ecn_signal)) < 0)
printf("Can't set data with setsockopt.\n");
}
In the example code above I've added an example flag simulate_ecn_signal which I thought could be a member of a (new) socket option (struct) called tcp_flags (that potentially could contain multiple flag values).
How do I define a new socket option, in order to accomplish this?

How to disable output while a tty-writing process is in background? [duplicate]

I have a method in my process that should be run only if the process is not in background.
How can I dynamically test if the current process is in background ?
Thanks
Here is what I use, for a program launched from a shell with job control (most of the shell, see below):
/* We can read from stdin if :
* - we are in foreground
* - stdin is a pipe end
*/
static int validate_stdin(void) {
pid_t fg = tcgetpgrp(STDIN_FILENO);
int rc = 0;
if(fg == -1) {
debug_printf("Piped\n");
} else if (fg == getpgrp()) {
debug_printf("foreground\n");
} else {
debug_printf("background\n");
rc = -1;
}
return rc;
}
If a session has a controlling terminal, there can be only process group in the foreground, and tcget/setpgrp is used for setting this process group id. So if your process group Id is not the process group Id of the foreground process group, then you are not in foreground.
It works if the shell has job control, as the link pointed by mouviciel says.
However, it is not always the case. For example, on embedded system using busybox, the shell can be configured with or without job control.
Check out Unix FAQ: How can a process detect if it's running in the background?
General answer is: You can't tell if you're running in the background.
But you can check if stdin is a terminal: if(isatty(0)) { ... }
Try to check availability of DISPLAY. There shown source code of xset command
How to check if Linux console screensaver has blanked screen
This sounds like a bad design. Can you tell us something about this method you're mentioning in your question? As mouviciel said, there's no reliable way.
One suggestion I have is to use the "foreground behaviour" by default and keep the "background behaviour" under a switch like -d (for daemon mode) or vice versa if your program usually runs in the background. One example of such usage is fetchmail.

USB Serial port programming has "disastrous" results

I am currently working on a C program running on a Raspberry Pi 3 (Linux Ubuntu) that is intended to provide a web page interface for configuring networking on an embedded system.
The code is being developed using Code::Blocks with the GDB debugger. I'm using microhttpd for the web server and that, plus the various web pages, are all working great. I'm now working on the USB Serial link to the embedded system using information in "Serial Programming Guide for POSIX Operating Systems".
The code below is responsible for opening the USB Serial link to the target system and seems to work fine - once. If I close the program and restart it (either standalone on the command line or from within Code::Blocks) the second time microhttpd is hosed - browser windows will no longer connect. Further, from within Code::Blocks the debugger is also hosed - once the program is started it cannot be paused or stopped. The only way is to kill it by closing the project.
The problem is clearly within the function since I can comment out the call to it and everything works as it did previously. Unfortunately, once the problem happens the only solution seems to be to reboot the Pi.
I've done things like this before using a scripting language (Tcl) but this time around I'm looking for a performance boost from a non-interpreted language since the Pi will also be running a high bandwidth data logging program through a similar USB serial interface.
The code is shown below:
/******************************************************************************/
/* This function scans through the list of USB Serial ports and tries to */
/* establish communication with the target system. */
/******************************************************************************/
void tapCommInit(void) {
char line[128];
char port[15]; // this is always of the form "/dev/TTYACMn"
char *ptr;
FILE *ifd;
struct termios options;
uint8_t msgOut[3], msgIn[4];
msgOut[0] = REQ_ID; // now prepare the message to send
msgOut[1] = 0; // no data so length is zero
msgOut[2] = 0;
/**************************************************************************/
/* First, get the list of USB Serial ports. */
/**************************************************************************/
system("ls -l /dev/serial/by-path > usbSerial\n"); // get current port list
ifd = fopen("usbSerial", "r");
logIt(fprintf(lfd, "serial ports: \n"));
/**************************************************************************/
/* The main loop iterates through the file looking for lines containing */
/* "tty" which should be a valid USB Serial port. The port is configured */
/* in raw mode as 8N1 and an ID request command is sent, which has no */
/* data. If a response is received it's checked to see if the returned */
/* ID is a match. If not, the port is closed and we keep looking. If a */
/* match is found, tapState is set to "UP" and the function returns. If */
/* no match is found, tapState is left in the initial "DOWN" state. */
/**************************************************************************/
while(1) {
if (fgets(line, 127, ifd) == NULL) { // end of file?
break; // yes - break out and return
}
ptr = strstr(line, "tty"); // make sure the line contains a valid entry
if (ptr == NULL) {
continue; // nothing to process on this line
}
strcpy(port, "/dev/"); // create a correct pathname
strcat(port, ptr); // append the "ttyACMn" part of the line
port[strlen(port)-1] = 0; // the last character is a newline - remove it
logIt(fprintf(lfd," %s\n", port)); // we have a port to process now
cfd = open(port, O_RDWR | O_NOCTTY | O_NDELAY); // cfd is a global int
if (cfd == -1) {
logIt(fprintf(lfd, "Could not open port: %s\n", port));
continue; // keep going with the next one (if any)
}
fcntl(cfd, F_SETFL, 0); // blocking mode
tcgetattr(cfd, &options); // get the current port settings
options.c_cflag |= (CLOCAL | CREAD); // ena receiver, ignore modem lines
options.c_lflag &= ~(ICANON | ECHO | ECHOE | ISIG); // raw, no echo
options.c_oflag &= ~OPOST; // no special output processing
options.c_cc[VMIN] = 0; // minimum number of raw read characters
options.c_cc[VTIME] = 10; // timeout in deciseconds (1 second timeout)
tcsetattr(cfd, TCSANOW, &options); // set options right now
cfsetispeed(&options, B115200); // input baud rate
cfsetospeed(&options, B115200); // output baud rate
options.c_cflag &= ~(CSIZE | PARENB | // clear size bits, no parity
CSTOPB | CRTSCTS); // 1 stop bit, no hw flow control
options.c_cflag |= CS8; // now set size: 8-bit characters
options.c_cflag &= ~(IXON | IXOFF | IXANY); // no sw flow control
if (write(cfd, msgOut, 3) < 3) {
logIt(fprintf(lfd, "Sending of output message failed\n"));
close(cfd);
continue;
}
if (read(cfd, msgIn, 4) != 4) {
logIt(fprintf(lfd, "Didn't get expected amount of return data\n"));
close(cfd);
continue;
}
if (msgIn[3] != HOST_ID) {
logIt(fprintf(lfd, "Got the wrong HOST_ID response\n"));
close(cfd);
continue;
}
logIt(fprintf(lfd, "Port found - communication established\n"));
tapState = UP;
break; // we're done - break out of the loop
}
fclose(ifd); // close and remove the file we created
remove("usbSerial");
}
from within Code::Blocks the debugger is also hosed - once the program is started it cannot be paused or stopped
It is far more likely that you do not understand your tools than that you have created an unkillable program.
It's easy enough to figure this out: divide and conquer. You've got a whole pile of unrelated components here. Start separating them and find out which pieces work fine in isolation and which continue to behave badly when disconnected from everything else. Then you'll have your culprit.
Specifically here, that means try running your program outside the IDE, then under command line gdb instead of GDB via the IDE.
Also, it should be possible to run your program without starting the web server piece, so that you can run the serial part of the app in isolation. This is not only good for debugging by minimizing confounding variables, it also encourages a loosely-coupled program design, which is a good thing in its own right.
In the end, you may find that the thing keeping your program from stopping is the web framework, Code::Blocks, or the way GDB operates on the Pi under Code::Blocks, rather than anything to do with the USB to serial adapter.
once the problem happens the only solution seems to be to reboot the Pi
If your program is still running in the background, then of course your next instance will fail if it tries to open the same USB port.
Don't guess, find out:
$ sudo lsof | grep ttyACM
or:
$ lsof -p $(pidof myprogram)
(Substitute pgrep if your system doesn't have pidof.)
I've done things like this before using a scripting language (Tcl) but this time around I'm looking for a performance boost from a non-interpreted language
Your serial port is running at 115,200 bps. Divide that by 10 to account for the stop and start bits, then flip the fraction to get seconds per byte, and you come to 87 microseconds per byte. And you only achieve that when the serial port is running flat-out, sending or receiving 11,500 bytes per second. Wanna take a guess at how many lines of code Tcl can interpret in 87 microseconds? Tcl isn't super-fast, but 87 microseconds is an eternity even in Tcl land.
Then on the other side of the connection, you have HTTP and a [W]LAN, likely adding another hundred milliseconds or so of delay per transaction.
Your need for speed is an illusion.
Now come back and talk to me again when you need to talk to 100 of these asynchronously, and then maybe we can start to justify C over Tcl.
(And I say this as one whose day job involves maintaining a large C++ program that does a lot of serial and network I/O.)
Now lets get to the many problems with this code:
system("ls -l /dev/serial/by-path > usbSerial\n"); // get current port list
ifd = fopen("usbSerial", "r");
Don't use a temporary where a pipe will suffice; use popen() here instead.
while(1) {
This is simply wrong. Say while (!feof(ifd)) { here, else you will attempt to read past the end of the file.
This, plus the next error, is likely the key to your major symptoms.
if (fgets(line, 127, ifd) == NULL) {
break;
There are several problems here:
You're assuming things about the meaning of the return value that do not follow from the documentation. The Linux fopen(3) man page isn't super clear on this; the BSD version is better:
The fgets() and gets() functions do not distinguish between end-of-file and error, and callers must use feof(3) and ferror(3) to determine which occurred.
Because fgets() is Standard C, and not Linux- or BSD-specific, it is generally safe to consult other systems' manual pages. Even better, consult a good generic C reference, such as Harbison & Steele. (I found that much more useful than K&R back when I was doing more pure C than C++.)
Bottom line, simply checking for NULL doesn't tell you everything you need to know here.
Secondarily, the hard-coded 127 constant is a code bomb waiting to go off, should you ever shrink the size of the line buffer. Say sizeof(line) here.
(No, not sizeof(line) - 1: fgets() leaves space for the trailing null character when reading. Again, RTFM carefully.)
The break is also a problem, but we'll have to get further down in the code to see why.
Moving on:
strcat(port, ptr); // append the "ttyACMn" part of the line
Two problems here:
You're blindly assuming that strlen(ptr) <= sizeof(port) - 6. Use strncat(3) instead.
(The prior line's strcpy() (as opposed to strncpy()) is justifiable because you're copying a string literal, so you can see that you're not overrunning the buffer, but you should get into the habit of pretending that the old C string functions that don't check lengths don't even exist. Some compilers will actually issue warnings when you use them, if you crank the warning level up.)
Or, better, give up on C strings, and start using std::string. I can see that you're trying to stick to C, but there really are things in C++ that are worth using, even if you mostly use C. C++'s automatic memory management facilities (not just string, but also auto_ptr/unique_ptr and more) fall into this category.
Plus, C++ strings operate more like Tcl strings, so you'll probably be more comfortable with them.
Factual assertions in comments must always be true, or they are likely mislead you later, potentially hazardously so. Your particular USB to serial adapter may use /dev/ttyACMx, but not all do. There's another common USB device class used by some serial-to-USB adapters that causes them to show up under Linux as ttyUSBx. More generally, a future change may change the device name in some other way; you might port to BSD, for example, and now your USB to serial device is called /dev/cu.usbserial, blowing your 15-byte port buffer. Don't assume.
Even with the BSD case aside, your port buffer should not be smaller than your line buffer, since you are concatenating the latter onto the former. At minimum, sizeof(port) should be sizeof(line) + strlen("/dev/"), just in case. If that seems excessive, it is only because 128 bytes for the line buffer is unnecessarily large. (Not that I'm trying to twist your arm to change it. RAM is cheap; programmer debugging time is expensive.)
Next:
fcntl(cfd, F_SETFL, 0); // blocking mode
File handles are blocking by default in Unix. You have to ask for a nonblocking file handle. Anyway, blasting all the flags is bad style; you don't know what other flags you're changing here. Proper style is to get, modify, then set, much like the way you're doing with tcsetattr():
int flags;
fcntl(cfd, F_GETFL, &flags);
flags &= ~O_NONBLOCK;
fcntl(cfd, F_SETFL, flags);
Well, you're kind of using tcsetattr() correctly:
tcsetattr(cfd, TCSANOW, &options);
...followed by further modifications to options without a second call to tcsetattr(). Oops!
You weren't under the impression that modifications to the options structure affect the serial port immediately, were you?
if (write(cfd, msgOut, 3) < 3) {
logIt(fprintf(lfd, "Sending of output message failed\n"));
close(cfd);
continue;
}
Piles of wrong here:
You're collapsing the short-write and error cases. Handle them separately:
int bytes = write(cfd, msgOut, 3);
if (bytes == 0) {
// can't happen with USB, but you may later change to a
// serial-to-Ethernet bridge (e.g. Digi One SP), and then
// it *can* happen under TCP.
//
// complain, close, etc.
}
else if (bytes < 0) {
// plain failure case; could collapse this with the == 0 case
// close, etc
}
else if (bytes < 3) {
// short write case
}
else {
// success case
}
You aren't logging errno or its string equivalent, so when (!) you get an error, you won't know which error:
logIt(fprintf(lfd, "Sending of output message failed: %s (code %d)\n",
strerror(errno), errno));
Modify to taste. Just realize that write(2), like most other Unix system calls, has a whole bunch of possible error codes. You probably don't want to handle all of them the same way. (e.g. EINTR)
After closing the FD, you're leaving it set to a valid FD value, so that on EOF after reading one line, you leave the function with a valid but closed FD value! (This is the problem with break above: it can implicitly return a closed FD to its caller.) Say cfd = -1 after every close(cfd) call.
Everything written above about write() also applies to the following read() call, but also:
if (read(cfd, msgIn, 4) != 4) {
There's nothing in POSIX that tells you that if the serial device sends 4 bytes that you will get all 4 bytes in a single read(), even with a blocking FD. You are especially unlikely to get more than one byte per read() with slow serial ports, simply because your program is lightning fast compared to the serial port. You need to call read() in a loop here, exiting only on error or completion.
And just in case it isn't obvious:
remove("usbSerial");
You don't need that if you switch to popen() above. Don't scatter temporary working files around the file system where a pipe will do.

Detecting Linux boot with perl and serial device

I am writing a perl script that boots a linux image and needs to detect if the image reached the login prompt. i am using the Device::serial module to communicate with the development board. i am running into problems detecting the login string. i think it might be related to the large amount of prints that occur during a linux boot. the code below tries to capture the prompt. strange enought it only works when i add the unnecessaty "read" command
# Wait for login prompt
$port->are_match("login:");
$gotit = "";
$timeout = 60;
until (($gotit ne "") or ($timeout eq 0))
{
$gotit = $port->lookfor; # poll until data ready
die "Aborted without match\n" unless (defined $gotit);
$read = $port->read(1000000);
$port->lookclear;
sleep(1);
$timeout--;
}
is "lookfor" good for the linux boot scenario at all? why does the "read" make this code work ?
thanks everyone
The CPAN doc page says to do this:
my $gotit = "";
until ("" ne $gotit) {
$gotit = $PortObj->lookfor; # poll until data ready
die "Aborted without match\n" unless (defined $gotit);
sleep 1; # polling sample time
}
There is no call to $port->lookClear in their loop. I suspect this is contributing to your issue. Also be careful with that timeout.

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