This question is a follow up of this question : Controlling a C daemon from another program
My goal is to control daemon process execution from another program.
The daemon's code is really simple.
int main()
{
printf("Daemon starting ...\n");
openlog("daemon-test", LOG_PID, LOG_DAEMON);
syslog(LOG_INFO, "Daemon started !\n");
while(1)
{
syslog(LOG_INFO, "Daemon alive - pid=%d, pgid=%d\n", getpid(), getpgrp());
sleep(1);
}
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
I have implemented a SystemV init script for this daemon as follow
#!/bin/sh
NAME=daemon-test
DAEMON=/usr/bin/${NAME}
SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/${NAME}
USER=root
RUN_LEVEL=99
PID_FILE=/var/run/${NAME}.pid
RETRY=3
start_daemon()
{
start-stop-daemon --start --background --name ${NAME} --chuid ${USER} --nicelevel ${RUN_LEVEL} --make-pidfile --pidfile ${PID_FILE} --exec ${DAEMON}
ret=$?
if [ "$ret" -eq 0 ]; then
echo "'${NAME}' started"
elif [ "$ret" -eq 1 ]; then
echo "'${NAME}' is already running"
else
echo "An error occured starting '${NAME}'"
fi
return ${ret}
}
stop_daemon()
{
start-stop-daemon --stop --retry ${RETRY} --remove-pidfile --pidfile ${PID_FILE} --name ${NAME} --signal 9
ret=$?
if [ "$ret" -eq 0 ]; then
echo "'${NAME}' stopped"
elif [ "$ret" -eq 1 ]; then
echo "'${NAME}' is already stopped"
elif [ "$ret" -eq 2 ]; then
echo "'${NAME}' not stopped after ${RETRY} tries"
else
echo "An error occured stopping '${NAME}'"
fi
return ${ret}
}
status_daemon()
{
start-stop-daemon --status --pidfile ${PID_FILE} --name ${NAME}
ret=$?
if [ "$ret" -eq 0 ]; then
echo "'${NAME}' is running"
elif [ "$ret" -eq 1 ]; then
echo "'${NAME}' stopped but pid file exits"
elif [ "$ret" -eq 3 ]; then
echo "'${NAME}' stopped"
elif [ "$ret" -eq 4 ]; then
echo "Unable to get '${NAME}' status"
else
echo "Unknown status : ${ret}"
fi
return ${ret}
}
case "$1" in
start)
echo "Starting '${NAME}' deamon :"
start_daemon
;;
stop)
echo "Stopping '${NAME}' deamon :"
stop_daemon
;;
status)
echo "Getting '${NAME}' deamon status :"
status_daemon
;;
restart|reload)
"$0" stop
"$0" start
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|restart}"
exit 1
esac
exit $?
Using this script from command line to control the daemon execution works well.
So the aim now is to use this script from another c program to launch the daemon and to control its execution from this program.
I have implemented a simple C program which:
- Launch the script with 'start' argument
- Wait for pid file creation
- Read daemon's pid from pid file
- Periodically check that daemon is alive by checking existence of file
/proc/<daemon_pid>/exec - If daemon is killed, relaunch it
And here is the issue I'm facing. The program works well only if I don't call pclose.
Here is the code of the program
#define DAEMON_NAME "daemon-test"
#define DAEMON_START_CMD "/etc/init.d/" DAEMON_NAME " start"
#define DAEMON_STOP_CMD "/etc/init.d/" DAEMON_NAME " stop"
#define DAEMON_PID_FILE "/var/run/" DAEMON_NAME ".pid"
int main()
{
char daemon_proc_path[256];
FILE* daemon_pipe = NULL;
int daemon_pid = 0;
FILE* fp = NULL;
int ret = 0;
int i = 0;
printf("Launching '%s' program\n", DAEMON_NAME);
if(NULL == (daemon_pipe = popen(DAEMON_START_CMD, "r")))
{
printf("An error occured launching '%s': %m\n", DAEMON_START_CMD);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
#ifdef USE_PCLOSE
else if(-1 == (ret = pclose(daemon_pipe)))
{
printf("An error occured waiting for '%s': %m\n", DAEMON_START_CMD);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
#endif
else
{
printf("Script exit status : %d\n", ret);
while(0 != access(DAEMON_PID_FILE, F_OK))
{
printf("Waiting for pid file creation\n");
sleep(1);
}
if(NULL == (fp = fopen(DAEMON_PID_FILE, "r")))
{
printf("Unable to open '%s'\n", DAEMON_PID_FILE);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
fscanf(fp, "%d", &daemon_pid);
fclose(fp);
printf("Daemon has pid=%d\n", daemon_pid);
sprintf(daemon_proc_path, "/proc/%d/exe", daemon_pid);
}
while(1)
{
if(0 != access(daemon_proc_path, F_OK))
{
printf("\n--- Daemon (pid=%d) has been killed ---\n", daemon_pid);
printf("Relaunching new daemon instance...\n");
if(NULL == (daemon_pipe = popen(DAEMON_START_CMD, "r")))
{
printf("An error occured launching '%s': %m\n", DAEMON_START_CMD);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
#ifdef USE_PCLOSE
else if(-1 == (ret = pclose(daemon_pipe)))
{
printf("An error occured waiting for '%s': %m\n", DAEMON_START_CMD);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
#endif
else
{
printf("Script exit status : %d\n", ret);
while(0 != access(DAEMON_PID_FILE, F_OK))
{
printf("Waiting for pid file creation\n");
sleep(1);
}
if(NULL == (fp = fopen(DAEMON_PID_FILE, "r")))
{
printf("Unable to open '%s'\n", DAEMON_PID_FILE);
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
fscanf(fp, "%d", &daemon_pid);
fclose(fp);
printf("Daemon has pid=%d\n", daemon_pid);
sprintf(daemon_proc_path, "/proc/%d/exe", daemon_pid);
}
}
else
{
printf("Daemon alive (pid=%d)\n", daemon_pid);
}
sleep(1);
}
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
From what I understood pclose is supposed to wait for child process termination and only when the child process has returned, it closes the pipe.
So I don't understand why my implementation with pclose doesn't work when it works without calling it.
Here are the logs with and without the pclose block commented
Without pclose calling:
# ./popenTest
Launching 'daemon-test' program
Script exit status : 0
Waiting for pid file creation
Daemon has pid=435
Daemon alive (pid=435)
Daemon alive (pid=435)
Daemon alive (pid=435)
Daemon alive (pid=435)
With pclose calling:
# ./popenTest
Launching 'daemon-test' program
Script exit status : 36096
Waiting for pid file creation
Waiting for pid file creation
Waiting for pid file creation
Waiting for pid file creation
As you can see, the daemon is never launched and the pid file is never created neither.
Even if my program works without pclose I would like to understand the underlying issue with the call to pclose.
Why using pclose makes the program fail when the behaviour is good without calling it ?
EDIT:
Here are some more information for the error case
errno is Success
WIFEXITED macro returns true
WEXITSTATUS macro returns 141
By going further into debugging, I have remarqued that modifying the init script to log output to a file makes it work... why ?
