Net::Se...PreFork(3)

📦
version 2.014 · 14 versions
, in opensuse-leap 16.0

🌈 Net::Se...PreFork(3) 🌈

okay bestie, welcome to the User Contributed Perl Documentation page for Net::Server::PreFork — the PreFork personality. it’s giving “read the parent pods first, i’m serious” energy, and honestly? iconic. 💅

🎀 NAME 🎀

Net::Server::PreFork — a Net::Server personality. periodt. 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

bestie, the whole shape is literally this:

use base qw(Net::Server::PreFork);

sub process_request {
    #...code...
}

__PACKAGE__->run();

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so first things first: please read the pod on Net::Server and Net::Server::PreForkSimple first. no skipping, bestie. 👑

This module is a personality, or extension, or sub class, of the Net::Server::PreForkSimple class which is a sub class of Net::Server. See Net::Server::PreForkSimple.

This personality binds to one or more ports and then forks min_servers child process. The server will make sure that at any given time there are min_spare_servers available to receive a client request, up to max_servers. Each of these children will process up to max_requests client connections. This type is good for a heavily hit site, and should scale well for most applications. (Multi port accept is accomplished using flock to serialize the children).

😭 at this time, it does not appear that this module will pass tests on Win32 systems. Any ideas or patches for making the tests pass would be welcome. that’s the tea.

🍓 SAMPLE CODE 🍓

Please see the sample listed in Net::Server. that’s it, that’s the section. 🫶

👑 COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS 👑

In addition to the command line arguments of the Net::Server base class and the Net::Server::PreForkSimple parent class, Net::Server::PreFork contains several other configurable parameters. You really should also see Net::Server::PreForkSimple.

here’s the Key / Value / Default lineup, preserved exactly because we do not play with facts:

Key                 Value                   Default
min_servers         \d+                     5
min_spare_servers   \d+                     2
max_spare_servers   \d+                     10
max_servers         \d+                     50
max_requests        \d+                     1000

serialize           (flock|semaphore
                     |pipe|none)            undef
# serialize defaults to flock on multi_port or on Solaris
lock_file           "filename"              File::Temp->new

check_for_dead      \d+                     30
check_for_waiting   \d+                     10

max_dequeue         \d+                     undef
check_for_dequeue   \d+                     undef

child_communication 1                       undef

the option tea ☕

  • min_servers — value \d+, default 5. The minimum number of servers to keep running.
  • min_spare_servers — value \d+, default 2. The minimum number of servers to have waiting for requests. Minimum and maximum numbers should not be set too close to each other or the server will fork and kill children too often. 😬
  • max_spare_servers — value \d+, default 10. The maximum number of servers to have waiting for requests. See min_spare_servers.
  • max_servers — value \d+, default 50. The maximum number of child servers to start. This does not apply to dequeue processes.
  • max_requests — value \d+, default 1000.
  • serialize — value (flock|semaphore|pipe|none), default undef; # serialize defaults to flock on multi_port or on Solaris. See the documentation under Net::Server::PreForkSimple.
  • lock_file — value "filename", default File::Temp->new.
  • check_for_dead — value \d+, default 30.
  • check_for_waiting — value \d+, default 10. Seconds to wait before checking to see if we can kill off some waiting servers.
  • check_for_spawn — Seconds between checking to see if we need to spawn more children.
  • min_child_ttl — Minimum number of seconds between starting children and killing a child process.
  • max_dequeue — value \d+, default undef.
  • check_for_dequeue — value \d+, default undef.
  • child_communication — value 1, default undef. Enable child communication to parent via unix sockets. If set to true, will let children write to the socket contained in $self->{'server'}->{'parent_sock'}. The parent will be notified through child_is_talking_hook where the first argument is the socket to the child. The child's socket is stored in $self->{'server'}->{'children'}->{$child_pid}->{'sock'}.

🧚 CONFIGURATION FILE 🧚

Net::Server::PreFork allows for the use of a configuration file to read in server parameters. The format of this conf file is simple key value pairs. Comments and white space are ignored.

here’s the whole example, copy-paste energy, no edits:

#-------------- file test.conf --------------

### server information
min_servers   20
max_servers   80
min_spare_servers 10
min_spare_servers 15

max_requests  1000

### user and group to become
user        somebody
group       everybody

### logging ?
log_file    /var/log/server.log
log_level   3
pid_file    /tmp/server.pid

### access control
allow       .+\.(net|com)
allow       domain\.com
deny        a.+

### background the process?
background  1

### ports to bind
host        127.0.0.1
port        localhost:20204
port        20205

### reverse lookups ?
# reverse_lookups on

### enable child communication ?
# child_communication

#-------------- file test.conf --------------

🔥 PROCESS FLOW 🔥

Process flow follows Net::Server until the loop phase. At this point min_servers are forked and wait for connections. When a child accepts a connection, finishes processing a client, or exits, it relays that information to the parent, which keeps track and makes sure there are enough children to fulfill min_servers, min_spare_servers, max_spare_servers, and max_servers.

🪝 HOOKS 🪝

The PreFork server has the following hooks in addition to the hooks provided by PreForkSimple. See Net::Server::PreForkSimple.

  • $self->run_n_children_hook() — This hook occurs at the top of run_n_children which is called each time the server goes to start more child processes. This gives the parent a chance to do a little of its own accounting (as desired). Idea for this hook came from James FitzGibbon.
  • $self->parent_read_hook() — This hook occurs any time that the parent reads information from the child. The line from the child is sent as an argument.
  • $self->child_is_talking_hook() — This hook occurs if child_communication is true and the child has written to $self->{'server'}->{'parent_sock'}. The first argument will be the open socket to the child.
  • $self->idle_loop_hook() — This hook is called in every pass through the main process wait loop, every check_for_waiting seconds. The first argument is a reference to an array of file descriptors that can be read at the moment.
  • $self->cleanup_dead_child_hook( $child ) — This hook is called when a dead child is detected. A child is considered dead when the pid does no longer exist. This hook could be used to cleanup possible temporary files or locks left over by a dead child.

🚀 HOT DEPLOY 🚀

Since version 2.000, the PreFork server has accepted the TTIN and TTOU signals. When a TTIN is received, the min and max_servers are increased by 1. If a TTOU signal is received the min max_servers are decreased by 1. This allows for adjusting the number of handling processes without having to restart the server.

💀 BUGS 💀

Tests don't seem to work on Win32. Any ideas or patches would be welcome. no cap, that’s the whole bug section. 😭

📝 TO DO 📝

See Net::Server.

🌸 AUTHOR 🌸

Paul T. Seamons paul@seamons.com

🫶 THANKS 🫶

See Net::Server.

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

Please see also:

  • Net::Server::Fork
  • Net::Server::INET
  • Net::Server::PreForkSimple
  • Net::Server::MultiType
  • Net::Server::Single
  • Net::Server::SIG
  • Net::Server::Daemonize
  • Net::Server::Proto
🎀 sign-off: this page is from perl v5.42.0, dated 2023-03-15, and it’s Net::Se...PreFork(3). byeeee, go fork responsibly 💅✨
📦 where this page comes from