I am getting unusual results while writing and reading from a pipe. The runtime error is Program terminated by signal: 13. I searched about this error and found that this error is due to there are no readers to read from pipe while i am reading from the pipe in the child process. Here is my code:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#define BUFFER_SIZE 50
#define READ_END 0
#define WRITE_END 1
int main()
{
int pipe_fd[2];
pid_t pid;
pid = fork();
char message[BUFFER_SIZE] = "Greetings";
char read_message[BUFFER_SIZE];
if( pipe(pipe_fd) == -1)
{
perror("Error in creating the pipe \n");
exit(-1);
}
if(pid==-1)
{
perror("Error in creating the child! \n");
exit(-1);
}
if(pid==0) // Child process
{
close(pipe_fd[WRITE_END]);
read(pipe_fd[READ_END], read_message , BUFFER_SIZE);
printf("The message read by the child is: %s", read_message);
close(pipe_fd[READ_END]);
}
if(pid>0) // Parent process
{
close(pipe_fd[READ_END]); //Closing the read end of the pipe
write(pipe_fd[WRITE_END], message, BUFFER_SIZE); // Writing to pipe on write_end
close(pipe_fd[WRITE_END]);
}
return 0;
}
Any suggestions how to solve this runtime error?
You need to open your pipe before you fork a child process. Otherwise your processes aren't talking to the same pipe.
Thus move your pipe creation code above the fork() call as follows:
if( pipe(pipe_fd) == -1)
{
perror("Error in creating the pipe \n");
exit(-1);
}
pid_t pid;
pid = fork();
char message[BUFFER_SIZE] = "Greetings";
char read_message[BUFFER_SIZE];
if(pid==-1)
{
perror("Error in creating the child! \n");
exit(-1);
}
What would be your suggestion in order to create a single instance application, so that only one process is allowed to run at a time? File lock, mutex or what?
A good way is:
#include <sys/file.h>
#include <errno.h>
int pid_file = open("/var/run/whatever.pid", O_CREAT | O_RDWR, 0666);
int rc = flock(pid_file, LOCK_EX | LOCK_NB);
if(rc) {
if(EWOULDBLOCK == errno)
; // another instance is running
}
else {
// this is the first instance
}
Note that locking allows you to ignore stale pid files (i.e. you don't have to delete them). When the application terminates for any reason the OS releases the file lock for you.
Pid files are not terribly useful because they can be stale (the file exists but the process does not). Hence, the application executable itself can be locked instead of creating and locking a pid file.
A more advanced method is to create and bind a unix domain socket using a predefined socket name. Bind succeeds for the first instance of your application. Again, the OS unbinds the socket when the application terminates for any reason. When bind() fails another instance of the application can connect() and use this socket to pass its command line arguments to the first instance.
Here is a solution in C++. It uses the socket recommendation of Maxim. I like this solution better than the file based locking solution, because the file based one fails if the process crashes and does not delete the lock file. Another user will not be able to delete the file and lock it. The sockets are automatically deleted when the process exits.
Usage:
int main()
{
SingletonProcess singleton(5555); // pick a port number to use that is specific to this app
if (!singleton())
{
cerr << "process running already. See " << singleton.GetLockFileName() << endl;
return 1;
}
... rest of the app
}
Code:
#include <netinet/in.h>
class SingletonProcess
{
public:
SingletonProcess(uint16_t port0)
: socket_fd(-1)
, rc(1)
, port(port0)
{
}
~SingletonProcess()
{
if (socket_fd != -1)
{
close(socket_fd);
}
}
bool operator()()
{
if (socket_fd == -1 || rc)
{
socket_fd = -1;
rc = 1;
if ((socket_fd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) < 0)
{
throw std::runtime_error(std::string("Could not create socket: ") + strerror(errno));
}
else
{
struct sockaddr_in name;
name.sin_family = AF_INET;
name.sin_port = htons (port);
name.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl (INADDR_ANY);
rc = bind (socket_fd, (struct sockaddr *) &name, sizeof (name));
}
}
return (socket_fd != -1 && rc == 0);
}
std::string GetLockFileName()
{
return "port " + std::to_string(port);
}
private:
int socket_fd = -1;
int rc;
uint16_t port;
};
For windows, a named kernel object (e.g. CreateEvent, CreateMutex). For unix, a pid-file - create a file and write your process ID to it.
You can create an "anonymous namespace" AF_UNIX socket. This is completely Linux-specific, but has the advantage that no filesystem actually has to exist.
Read the man page for unix(7) for more info.
Avoid file-based locking
It is always good to avoid a file based locking mechanism to implement the singleton instance of an application. The user can always rename the lock file to a different name and run the application again as follows:
mv lockfile.pid lockfile1.pid
Where lockfile.pid is the lock file based on which is checked for existence before running the application.
So, it is always preferable to use a locking scheme on object directly visible to only the kernel. So, anything which has to do with a file system is not reliable.
So the best option would be to bind to a inet socket. Note that unix domain sockets reside in the filesystem and are not reliable.
Alternatively, you can also do it using DBUS.
It's seems to not be mentioned - it is possible to create a mutex in shared memory but it needs to be marked as shared by attributes (not tested):
pthread_mutexattr_t attr;
pthread_mutexattr_init(&attr);
pthread_mutexattr_setpshared(&attr, PTHREAD_PROCESS_SHARED);
pthread_mutex_t *mutex = shmat(SHARED_MEMORY_ID, NULL, 0);
pthread_mutex_init(mutex, &attr);
There is also shared memory semaphores (but I failed to find out how to lock one):
int sem_id = semget(SHARED_MEMORY_KEY, 1, 0);
No one has mentioned it, but sem_open() creates a real named semaphore under modern POSIX-compliant OSes. If you give a semaphore an initial value of 1, it becomes a mutex (as long as it is strictly released only if a lock was successfully obtained).
With several sem_open()-based objects, you can create all of the common equivalent Windows named objects - named mutexes, named semaphores, and named events. Named events with "manual" set to true is a bit more difficult to emulate (it requires four semaphore objects to properly emulate CreateEvent(), SetEvent(), and ResetEvent()). Anyway, I digress.
Alternatively, there is named shared memory. You can initialize a pthread mutex with the "shared process" attribute in named shared memory and then all processes can safely access that mutex object after opening a handle to the shared memory with shm_open()/mmap(). sem_open() is easier if it is available for your platform (if it isn't, it should be for sanity's sake).
Regardless of the method you use, to test for a single instance of your application, use the trylock() variant of the wait function (e.g. sem_trywait()). If the process is the only one running, it will successfully lock the mutex. If it isn't, it will fail immediately.
Don't forget to unlock and close the mutex on application exit.
It will depend on which problem you want to avoid by forcing your application to have only one instance and the scope on which you consider instances.
For a daemon — the usual way is to have a /var/run/app.pid file.
For user application, I've had more problems with applications which prevented me to run them twice than with being able to run twice an application which shouldn't have been run so. So the answer on "why and on which scope" is very important and will probably bring answer specific on the why and the intended scope.
Here is a solution based on sem_open
/*
*compile with :
*gcc single.c -o single -pthread
*/
/*
* run multiple instance on 'single', and check the behavior
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <semaphore.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#define SEM_NAME "/mysem_911"
int main()
{
sem_t *sem;
int rc;
sem = sem_open(SEM_NAME, O_CREAT, S_IRWXU, 1);
if(sem==SEM_FAILED){
printf("sem_open: failed errno:%d\n", errno);
}
rc=sem_trywait(sem);
if(rc == 0){
printf("Obtained lock !!!\n");
sleep(10);
//sem_post(sem);
sem_unlink(SEM_NAME);
}else{
printf("Lock not obtained\n");
}
}
One of the comments on a different answer says "I found sem_open() rather lacking". I am not sure about the specifics of what's lacking
Based on the hints in maxim's answer here is my POSIX solution of a dual-role daemon (i.e. a single application that can act as daemon and as a client communicating with that daemon). This scheme has the advantage of providing an elegant solution of the problem when the instance started first should be the daemon and all following executions should just load off the work at that daemon. It is a complete example but lacks a lot of stuff a real daemon should do (e.g. using syslog for logging and fork to put itself into background correctly, dropping privileges etc.), but it is already quite long and is fully working as is. I have only tested this on Linux so far but IIRC it should be all POSIX-compatible.
In the example the clients can send integers passed to them as first command line argument and parsed by atoi via the socket to the daemon which prints it to stdout. With this kind of sockets it is also possible to transfer arrays, structs and even file descriptors (see man 7 unix).
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/un.h>
#define SOCKET_NAME "/tmp/exampled"
static int socket_fd = -1;
static bool isdaemon = false;
static bool run = true;
/* returns
* -1 on errors
* 0 on successful server bindings
* 1 on successful client connects
*/
int singleton_connect(const char *name) {
int len, tmpd;
struct sockaddr_un addr = {0};
if ((tmpd = socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) < 0) {
printf("Could not create socket: '%s'.\n", strerror(errno));
return -1;
}
/* fill in socket address structure */
addr.sun_family = AF_UNIX;
strcpy(addr.sun_path, name);
len = offsetof(struct sockaddr_un, sun_path) + strlen(name);
int ret;
unsigned int retries = 1;
do {
/* bind the name to the descriptor */
ret = bind(tmpd, (struct sockaddr *)&addr, len);
/* if this succeeds there was no daemon before */
if (ret == 0) {
socket_fd = tmpd;
isdaemon = true;
return 0;
} else {
if (errno == EADDRINUSE) {
ret = connect(tmpd, (struct sockaddr *) &addr, sizeof(struct sockaddr_un));
if (ret != 0) {
if (errno == ECONNREFUSED) {
printf("Could not connect to socket - assuming daemon died.\n");
unlink(name);
continue;
}
printf("Could not connect to socket: '%s'.\n", strerror(errno));
continue;
}
printf("Daemon is already running.\n");
socket_fd = tmpd;
return 1;
}
printf("Could not bind to socket: '%s'.\n", strerror(errno));
continue;
}
} while (retries-- > 0);
printf("Could neither connect to an existing daemon nor become one.\n");
close(tmpd);
return -1;
}
static void cleanup(void) {
if (socket_fd >= 0) {
if (isdaemon) {
if (unlink(SOCKET_NAME) < 0)
printf("Could not remove FIFO.\n");
} else
close(socket_fd);
}
}
static void handler(int sig) {
run = false;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
switch (singleton_connect(SOCKET_NAME)) {
case 0: { /* Daemon */
struct sigaction sa;
sa.sa_handler = &handler;
sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask);
if (sigaction(SIGINT, &sa, NULL) != 0 || sigaction(SIGQUIT, &sa, NULL) != 0 || sigaction(SIGTERM, &sa, NULL) != 0) {
printf("Could not set up signal handlers!\n");
cleanup();
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
struct msghdr msg = {0};
struct iovec iovec;
int client_arg;
iovec.iov_base = &client_arg;
iovec.iov_len = sizeof(client_arg);
msg.msg_iov = &iovec;
msg.msg_iovlen = 1;
while (run) {
int ret = recvmsg(socket_fd, &msg, MSG_DONTWAIT);
if (ret != sizeof(client_arg)) {
if (errno != EAGAIN && errno != EWOULDBLOCK) {
printf("Error while accessing socket: %s\n", strerror(errno));
exit(1);
}
printf("No further client_args in socket.\n");
} else {
printf("received client_arg=%d\n", client_arg);
}
/* do daemon stuff */
sleep(1);
}
printf("Dropped out of daemon loop. Shutting down.\n");
cleanup();
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
case 1: { /* Client */
if (argc < 2) {
printf("Usage: %s <int>\n", argv[0]);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
struct iovec iovec;
struct msghdr msg = {0};
int client_arg = atoi(argv[1]);
iovec.iov_base = &client_arg;
iovec.iov_len = sizeof(client_arg);
msg.msg_iov = &iovec;
msg.msg_iovlen = 1;
int ret = sendmsg(socket_fd, &msg, 0);
if (ret != sizeof(client_arg)) {
if (ret < 0)
printf("Could not send device address to daemon: '%s'!\n", strerror(errno));
else
printf("Could not send device address to daemon completely!\n");
cleanup();
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
printf("Sent client_arg (%d) to daemon.\n", client_arg);
break;
}
default:
cleanup();
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
cleanup();
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
All credits go to Mark Lakata. I merely did some very minor touch up only.
main.cpp
#include "singleton.hpp"
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
SingletonProcess singleton(5555); // pick a port number to use that is specific to this app
if (!singleton())
{
cerr << "process running already. See " << singleton.GetLockFileName() << endl;
return 1;
}
// ... rest of the app
}
singleton.hpp
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <cerrno>
#include <string>
#include <cstring>
#include <stdexcept>
using namespace std;
class SingletonProcess
{
public:
SingletonProcess(uint16_t port0)
: socket_fd(-1)
, rc(1)
, port(port0)
{
}
~SingletonProcess()
{
if (socket_fd != -1)
{
close(socket_fd);
}
}
bool operator()()
{
if (socket_fd == -1 || rc)
{
socket_fd = -1;
rc = 1;
if ((socket_fd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) < 0)
{
throw std::runtime_error(std::string("Could not create socket: ") + strerror(errno));
}
else
{
struct sockaddr_in name;
name.sin_family = AF_INET;
name.sin_port = htons (port);
name.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl (INADDR_ANY);
rc = bind (socket_fd, (struct sockaddr *) &name, sizeof (name));
}
}
return (socket_fd != -1 && rc == 0);
}
std::string GetLockFileName()
{
return "port " + std::to_string(port);
}
private:
int socket_fd = -1;
int rc;
uint16_t port;
};
#include <windows.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
// ensure only one running instance
HANDLE hMutexH`enter code here`andle = CreateMutex(NULL, TRUE, L"my.mutex.name");
if (GetLastError() == ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS)
{
return 0;
}
// rest of the program
ReleaseMutex(hMutexHandle);
CloseHandle(hMutexHandle);
return 0;
}
FROM: HERE
On Windows you could also create a shared data segment and use an interlocked function to test for the first occurence, e.g.
#include <Windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>
#pragma data_seg("Shared")
volatile LONG lock = 0;
#pragma data_seg()
#pragma comment(linker, "/SECTION:Shared,RWS")
void main()
{
if (InterlockedExchange(&lock, 1) == 0)
printf("first\n");
else
printf("other\n");
getch();
}
I have just written one, and tested.
#define PID_FILE "/tmp/pidfile"
static void create_pidfile(void) {
int fd = open(PID_FILE, O_RDWR | O_CREAT | O_EXCL, 0);
close(fd);
}
int main(void) {
int fd = open(PID_FILE, O_RDONLY);
if (fd > 0) {
close(fd);
return 0;
}
// make sure only one instance is running
create_pidfile();
}
Just run this code on a seperate thread:
void lock() {
while(1) {
ofstream closer("myapplock.locker", ios::trunc);
closer << "locked";
closer.close();
}
}
Run this as your main code:
int main() {
ifstream reader("myapplock.locker");
string s;
reader >> s;
if (s != "locked") {
//your code
}
return 0;
}
I've written the program which spawns a thread that reads in a loop from stdin in a blocking fashion. I want to make the thread return from blocked read immediately. I've registered my signal handler (with sigaction and without SA_RESTART flag) in the reading thread, send it a signal and expect read to exit with EINTR error. But it doesn't happen. Is it issue or limitation of Cygwin or am I doing something wrong?
Here is the code:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <pthread.h>
pthread_t thread;
volatile int run = 0;
void root_handler(int signum)
{
printf("%s ENTER (thread is %x)\n", __func__, pthread_self());
run = 0;
}
void* thr_func(void*arg)
{ int res;
char buffer[256];
printf("%s ENTER (thread is %x)\n", __func__, pthread_self());
struct sigaction act;
memset (&act, 0, sizeof(act));
act.sa_sigaction = &root_handler;
//act.sa_flags = SA_RESTART;
if (sigaction(SIGUSR1, &act, NULL) < 0) {
perror ("sigaction error");
return 1;
}
while(run)
{
res = read(0,buffer, sizeof(buffer));
if(res == -1)
{
if(errno == EINTR)
{
puts("read was interrupted by signal");
}
}
else
{
printf("got: %s", buffer);
}
}
printf("%s LEAVE (thread is %x)\n", __func__, pthread_self());
}
int main() {
run = 1;
printf("root thread: %x\n", pthread_self());
pthread_create(&thread, NULL, &thr_func, NULL);
printf("thread %x started\n", thread);
sleep(4);
pthread_kill(thread, SIGUSR1 );
//raise(SIGUSR1);
pthread_join(thread, NULL);
return 0;
}
I'm using Cygwin (1.7.32(0.274/5/3)).
I've just tried to do the same on Ubuntu and it works (I needed to include signal.h, though, even though in Cygwin it compiled as it is). It seems to be peculiarity of Cygwin's implementation.
When the following C program is executed, and SIGUSR1 is sent to the running process repeatedly, the pclose() call will sometimes return 13. 13 corresponds to SIGPIPE on my system.
Why does this happen?
I am using while true; do kill -SIGUSR1 <process-id>; done to send SIGUSR1 to the program. The program is executed on Ubuntu 14.04.
#include <pthread.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
void handler(int i) {}
void* task(void*)
{
FILE *s;
char b [BUFSIZ];
while (1) {
if ((s = popen("echo hello", "r")) == NULL) {
printf("popen() failed\n");
}
while (fgets(b, BUFSIZ, s) != NULL) ;
if (int r = pclose(s)) {
printf("pclose() failed (%d)\n", r);
}
}
return 0;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
struct sigaction action;
action.sa_handler = handler;
sigemptyset(&action.sa_mask);
action.sa_flags = 0;
sigaction(SIGUSR1, &action, NULL);
pthread_t tid;
pthread_create(&tid, 0, task, NULL);
pthread_join(tid, NULL);
}
This happens when fgets gets interrupted by the signal. The program doesn't read the pipe to the end and closes it. The other program then SIGPIPEs.
The correct pipe reading operation is:
do {
while (fgets(b, BUFSIZ, s) != NULL) ;
} while (errno == EINTR);
What's the proper way to log a shutdown message when an application (a C++ daemon, in my case) receives a SIGTERM or SIGINT?
According to CERT and the signal(7) manpage, many functions (including, presumably, those used by most logging libraries) aren't safe to call from signal handlers.
Vlad Lazarenko wrote a great blog post earlier this year on this very topic. On Linux it boils down to creating a signal descriptor with signalfd(2) and use an event loop such as poll(2) or epoll_wait(2). Here is Vlad's example reading from the descriptor
#include <sys/signalfd.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#define handle_error(msg) \
do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0)
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
sigset_t mask;
int sfd;
struct signalfd_siginfo fdsi;
ssize_t s;
sigemptyset(&mask);
sigaddset(&mask, SIGINT);
sigaddset(&mask, SIGQUIT);
/* Block signals so that they aren't handled
according to their default dispositions */
if (sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, &mask, NULL) == -1)
handle_error("sigprocmask");
sfd = signalfd(-1, &mask, 0);
if (sfd == -1)
handle_error("signalfd");
for (;;) {
s = read(sfd, &fdsi, sizeof(struct signalfd_siginfo));
if (s != sizeof(struct signalfd_siginfo))
handle_error("read");
if (fdsi.ssi_signo == SIGINT) {
printf("Got SIGINT\n");
} else if (fdsi.ssi_signo == SIGQUIT) {
printf("Got SIGQUIT\n");
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
} else {
printf("Read unexpected signal\n");
}
}
}
This example can easily be extended to integrate into an event loop.
Logging could be done not from handler, but after it:
int received_sigterm = 0;
void
sigterm_handler(int sig)
{
received_sigterm = 1;
}
void
loop(void)
{
for(;;) {
sleep(1);
if (received_sigterm)
log("finish\n");
}
}
int
main()
{
log("start\n");
signal(SIGTERM, sigterm_handler);
loop();
}
The concept is borrowed from openssh-6.1 sources.