// $Id$
//
-// Copyright (C) 2007
-// Fraunhofer Institut fuer offene Kommunikationssysteme (FOKUS)
-// Kompetenzzentrum fuer NETwork research (NET)
+// Copyright (C) 2007
+// Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS)
+// Competence Center NETwork research (NET), St. Augustin, GERMANY
// Stefan Bund <g0dil@berlios.de>
//
// This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
/** \brief Daemon process
- This class provides the infrastructure to implement robust daemon processes. A daemon
- process is implemented by deriving from senf::Daemon and implementing the necessary
- (virtual) member functions.
- \code
- class MyDaemon : public senf::Daemon
- {
- void configure() {
- // Set configuration parameters like daemonize(), pidFile() etc.
- }
-
- void init() {
- // Initialize application. Setup all necessary objects. After init()
- // has completed, is startup should not fail anymore
- }
-
- void run() {
- // Main application code should be called here.
- }
- };
- \endcode
-
- The startup procedure is divided into three steps:
- \li First, configure() is called. configure() should be as simple as possible. It just needs
- to set the daemon parameters. No further setup should be done here.
- \li init() is called after fork() but while still connected to the terminal. init() should
- do all necessary application setup. Here, all configuration or user errors should be
- detected and properly diagnosed.
- \li After init() returns, the application will detach from the terminal. Now run() is called
- to enter the application main loop.
-
- Since there are times, where separating init() and run() into two separate functions is
- difficult, instead of defining init() and run(), the member main() may be defined. This
- member must call detach() as soon as initialization is completed to detach from the
- foreground terminal.
+ senf::Daemon provides simple management for daemon processes. Specifically, the Daemon class
+ implements
+ \li <i>Safe startup.</i> If the startup fails, the foreground process which launches the
+ daemon will terminate with an appropriate error exit code.
+ \li <i>Straight forward application initialization.</i> The daemon process is forked before
+ even initializing the application. The initialization procedure must not cater for a
+ later fork().
+ \li <i>Automatic pid file management.</i> The daemon will not be started, if a valid pid file is
+ found. Stale pid files are automatically removed.
+ \li <i>Console log management.</i> It is possible, to redirect standard output and error to
+ one or two log files. Messages pertaining to application initialization will be written
+ to both the console and the log file whereas later messages will be directed to the log
+ file only.
+ \li <i>Optional foreground execution.</i> The daemon may be started in the foreground for
+ debugging purposes. In this case, the console log file(s) is/are automatically
+ suppressed.
+
+ Starting the daemon process proceeds along the following steps:
+ \li The daemon is started by calling the daemon class instances start() member. This
+ normally happens from the \c main() function generated by \ref SENF_DAEMON_MAIN().
+ \li configure() is called. This (virtual) member configures the daemon manager by calling
+ the Daemon class parameter members.
+ \li The log files are opened, \c fork() is called and the pid file is checked and
+ created. The parent (foreground) process keeps running overseeing the daemon process.
+ \li main() is called. This virtual member may optionally be overridden in the derived
+ class. Here we assume, main() is not overridden so the default implementation is used.
+ \li main() calls init().
+ \li after init() returns, main() calls detach().
+ \li detach() signals successful startup to the parent process. The parent process terminates
+ leaving the daemon process running in the background.
+ \li main() calls run()
+ \li If run() ever returns, the daemon process terminates.
+ \li Whenever the process terminates normally (not necessarily successfully), the pid file is
+ automatically removed.
+
+ The parameter members are used from configure() to configure the daemon manager. See below
+ for details. The \e default configure() implementation will scan the command line arguments
+ to check for the following parameters:
+
+ <table class="senf">
+
+ <tr><td><tt>--no-daemon</tt></td><td>Run in foreground</td></tr>
+
+ <tr><td><tt>--console-log=</tt><i>stdout</i>[<tt>,</tt><i>stderr</i>]</td><td>Set the
+ console log file(s). If only \a stdout is specified (with no comma), the same log file
+ configuration will be applied to the standard output and error stream. Otherwise each stream
+ is assigned it's own log file. If either log file name is empty, the command will not change
+ the log file of that stream, the default log file will be used. If the log file name is set
+ to 'none', the log file will be disabled.</td></tr>
+
+ <tr><td><tt>--pid-file=</tt><i>pidfile</i></td><td>Set pid file path</td></tr>
+
+ </table>
+
+ The default configure() implementation will use whatever parameters have been set beforehand
+ as default values. These default values should be set in a derived class configure()
+ implementation. After setting the default values, the configure() implementation may choose
+ to call this default configure() implementation to scan for command line parmeters. The
+ default configure() implementation does \e not completely parse the command line
+ arguments. It just checks, if any of above arguments are present and precesses them. Other
+ arguments are completely ignored. The command line parameters should be completely processed
+ within init().
+
*/
class Daemon : boost::noncopyable
{
ignored. */
void pidFile(std::string const &); ///< Configure pid file
+ /**< If a pid file is configured it will be checked on
+ daemon startup. If another running instance of the
+ daemon is detected, starting the daemon will fail. */
///\}
///\name Auxiliary helpers
int argc(); ///< Access command line parameter count
char const ** argv(); ///< Access command line parameters
- void fail(int code=1); ///< Terminate startup with failure
+ static void exit(unsigned code=0); ///< Terminate daemon with failure
///\}
Daemon();
virtual void configure(); ///< Called before forking to configure the daemon class
+ /**< This default implementation will parser some command
+ line parameters. See the class documentation above. */
# ifdef DOXYGEN
protected: