The following C snippet is supposed to be run by Windows IIS, as a CGI .exe program.
It outputs three character "a, b, c" with a 10 second delay between them.
However, if I use a browser to access the program, and then reloads the browser page to access the program again - then I get two processes running in parallell on the IIS.
At the browser I will of course only see the output of process 2, as the TCP connection to process 1 has been closed after the first "a" was received.
On the Windows server process 2 happily runs to completion, but processes 1 runs only until it outputs the second character "b".
The WriteFile that outputs that "b" is successful, and also the following log write "Done" is also excuted (thus, there is no fatil exception in WriteFile).
But then, suddenly, process 1 is terminated.
My theory is that IIS detects that some output is received from process 1, and that IIS then forcibly terminates it (as the client is disconnected)
If I add a 10ms sleep (commented below) after the WriteFile, then process 1 does not even execute the log write "Done".
I suppose that this is due to the fact that IIS needs a little time to perform that Terminate call, and without the Sleep the process has time to execute at least the log write "Done" before IIS terminates.
Does anybody recognize this?
And how do I stop IIS from terminating the process (except by beginning by forking it into a new process, that is not owned by IIS)
I really would like to run process 1 all the way to the end, even if no client is "listening" to it...
#include <stdio.h>
#include <windows.h>
void out(char *text)
{
int i;
int written;
char buf[1000];
FILE *fp;
for(i = 0; text[i] != '\0'; i++)
buf[i] = (text[i] == '\n' ? '^' : text[i]);
buf[i] = '\0';
if((fp = fopen("/temp/testkill.txt", "a")) != NULL) {
fprintf(fp, "%d: Write %s\n", _getpid(), buf);
fclose(fp);
}
if(WriteFile(GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE), text, strlen(text), &written, NULL) == 0)
written = -1;
// Sleep(10);
if((fp = fopen("/temp/testkill.txt", "a")) != NULL) {
fprintf(fp, "%d: Done! %s (%d)\n", _getpid(), buf, written);
fclose(fp);
}
}
main()
{
out("Content-Type: text/html\n\n<html><body>\n");
out("a");
Sleep(10000);
out("b");
Sleep(10000);
out("c");
}
Related
SO,
There are many similar questions, however none that I have been able to use. My code snippet is as follows:
for(int j=0; j<N; j++) {
pid_t pid = fork();
if (pid == -1) {
exit(-1); //err
} else if (pid == 0) {//kid
stringstream ss;
ss<<j;
execlp("./sub","sub",ss.str().c_str(),NULL);
exit(0);
} else {
/* parent */
}
}
my executing code in sub(.cpp) is:
int main( int argc, char **argv )
{
cout<<argv[i]<<endl;
exit(0);
}
my output is as such:
[terminal prompt '$'] 4
2
3
etc.
Is there a way I could prevent the prompt from displaying on the exec call? and why is it ONLY displaying on the first exec call, and not on every one?
What you see is the normal prompt of your shell, because the parent process terminates very quickly. It is not the output of the exec call. The forked processes print their output after the parent process has terminated.
You can use waitpid() in the parent process to "wait" until all forked process have terminated.
I am writing a C++ (Windows) client console application which reads from an anonymous pipe on STDIN. I would like to be able to use my program as follows:
echo input text here | my_app.exe
and do something in the app with the text that is piped in
OR
my_app.exe
and then use some default text inside of the app instead of the input from the pipe.
I currently have code that successfully reads from the pipe on STDIN given the first situation:
#include <Windows.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#define BUFSIZE 4096
int main(int argc, const char *argv[]) {
char char_buffer[BUFSIZE];
DWORD bytes_read;
HANDLE stdin_handle;
BOOL continue_reading;
unsigned int required_size;
bool read_successful = true;
stdin_handle = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
if (stdin_handle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
std::cout << "Error: invalid handle value!\n\n";
} else {
continue_reading = true;
while (continue_reading) {
continue_reading = ReadFile(stdin_handle, char_buffer, BUFSIZE,
&bytes_read, NULL);
if (continue_reading) {
if (bytes_read != 0) {
// Output what we have read so far
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < bytes_read; i++) {
std::cout << char_buffer[i];
}
} else {
continue_reading = false;
}
}
}
}
return 0;
}
I know that my only option with anonymous pipes is to do a blocking read with ReadFile. If I understand correctly, in regard to how I am invoking it, ReadFile will continue to read from the buffer on STDIN until it detects an end of write operation on the other end of the pipe (perhapse reads some sort of "end of write" token??). I would like to know if there is some sort of "beginning write" token that will be in the buffer if something is being piped in which I can check on STDIN BEFORE I call ReadFile. If this were the case I could just skip calling ReadFile and use some default text.
If there is not a way to do this, I can always pass in a command line argument that denotes that I should not check the pipe and just use the default text (or the other way around), but I would much prefer to do it the way that I specified.
Look at PeekNamedPipe(). Despite its name, it works for both named and anonymous pipes.
int main(int argc, const char *argv[])
{
char char_buffer[BUFSIZE];
DWORD bytes_read;
DWORD bytes_avail;
DWORD dw;
HANDLE stdin_handle;
bool is_pipe;
stdin_handle = GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE);
is_pipe = !GetConsoleMode(stdin_handle, &dw);
if (stdin_handle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
std::cout << "Error: invalid handle value!\n\n";
} else {
while (1) {
if (is_pipe) {
if (PeekNamedPipe(stdin_handle, NULL, 0, NULL, &bytes_avail, NULL)) {
if (bytes_avail == 0) {
Sleep(100);
continue;
}
}
}
if (!ReadFile(stdin_handle, char_buffer, min(bytes_avail, BUFSIZE), &bytes_read, NULL)) {
break;
}
if (bytes_read == 0) {
break;
}
// Output what we have read so far
for (unsigned int i = 0; i < bytes_read; i++) {
std::cout << char_buffer[i];
}
}
}
return 0;
}
It looks like what you're really trying to do here is to determine whether you've got console input (where you use default value) vs pipe input (where you use input from the pipe).
Suggest testing that directly instead of trying to check if there's input ready: the catch with trying to sniff whether there's data in the pipe is that if the source app is slow in generating output, your app might make an incorrect assumption just because there isn't input yet available. (It might also be possible that, due to typeahead, there's a user could have typed in characters that area ready to be read from console STDIN before your app gets around to checking if input is available.)
Also, keep in mind that it might be useful to allow your app to be used with file redirection, not just pipes - eg:
myapp.exe < some_input_file
The classic way to do this "interactive mode, vs used with redirected input" test on unix is using isatty(); and luckily there's an equivalent in the Windows CRT - see function _isatty(); or use GetFileType() checking for FILE_TYPE_CHAR on GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE) - or use say GetConsoleMode as Remy does, which will only succeed on a real console handle.
This also works without overlapped I/O while using a second thread, that does the synchronous ReadFile-call. Then the main thread waits an arbitrary amount of time and acts like above...
Hope this helps...
so, I have an assignment for my Operating Systems class wherein i am to create a ring of processes connected with pipes in order to pass messages between them. i found some example code which i was looking to adapt (or at least understand) for my needs. the example code (slightly modified) is:
/* Program 4.1 */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <errno.h>
/* Sample C program for generating a unidirectional ring of processes.Invoke this program
with a command-line arg ument indicating the number of processes on the ring. Communication
is done via pipes that connect the standard output of a process to the standard input of
its successor on the ring. After the ring is created, each process identifies itself with
its process ID and the process ID of its parent. Each process then exits. */
void main(int argc, char *argv[ ])
{
int master_pid = getpid();
printf("master pid: %i\n", master_pid);
int i; /* number of this process (starting with 1) */
int childpid; /* indicates process should spawn another */
int nprocs; /* total number of processes in ring */
int fd[2]; /* file descriptors returned by pipe */
int error; /* return value from dup2 call */
/* check command line for a valid number of processes to generate */
if ( (argc != 2) || ((nprocs = atoi (argv[1])) <= 0) ) {
fprintf (stderr, "Usage: %s nprocs\n", argv[0]);
exit(1);
}
/* connect std input to std output via a pipe */
if (pipe (fd) == -1) {
perror("Could not create pipe");
exit(1);
}
printf("%s\n", "test");
//this section is blocking printf()?
if ((dup2(fd[0], STDIN_FILENO) == -1) ||
(dup2(fd[1], STDOUT_FILENO) == -1)) {
perror("Could not dup pipes");
exit(1);
}
printf("%s\n", "test");
if ((close(fd[0]) == -1) || (close(fd[1]) == -1)) {
perror("Could not close extra descriptors");
exit(1);
}
/* create the remaining processes with their connecting pipes */
for (i = 1; i < nprocs; i++) {
if (pipe (fd) == -1) {
fprintf(stderr,"Could not create pipe %d: %s\n",
i, strerror(errno));
exit(1);
}
if ((childpid = fork()) == -1) {
fprintf(stderr, "Could not create child %d: %s\n",
i, strerror(errno));
exit(1);
}
if (childpid > 0) /* for parent process, reassign stdout */
error = dup2(fd[1], STDOUT_FILENO);
else
error = dup2(fd[0], STDIN_FILENO);
if (error == -1) {
fprintf(stderr, "Could not dup pipes for iteration %d: %s\n",
i, strerror(errno));
exit(1);
}
if ((close(fd[0]) == -1) || (close(fd[1]) == -1)) {
fprintf(stderr, "Could not close extra descriptors %d: %s\n",
i, strerror(errno));
exit(1);
}
if (childpid)
break;
}
/* say hello to the world */
fprintf(stderr,"This is process %d with ID %d and parent id %d\n",
i, (int)getpid(), (int)getppid());
wait(1);
exit (0);
} /* end of main program here */
which outputs:
master pid: 30593
test
This is process 1 with ID 30593 and parent id 30286
This is process 2 with ID 30594 and parent id 30593
when i give is 2 as argv[1]
so, I'm wondering, why would the dup2 section prevent the printf() from executing? if i cant even print something, i'm not sure if i could even pass the message correctly. also, why would the fprintf() already there work, but not one that i would put there?
edit: i would take this to my professor/TA, but theyre both out of town and will be unreachable between now and the deadline...
printf prints to stdout, which is file descriptor 1 (or equivalently STDOUT_FILENO). dup2(3) is duplicating the pipe's file descriptor on top of the current stdout, which has the side effect of closing the current stdout. So, when you try to printf after calling that particular dup2, you're really printing the data into the pipe you just created, which doesn't go to your terminal output.
fprintf(stderr, ...) still works because that prints to stderr, not stdout, and the stderr file descriptor (2, or equivalently STDERR_FILENO) does not change during the program, so it continues to print out to the terminal.
printf() does not send data to path 0, it sends buffered data using stdout. It would seem that when you disrupt path 0 by dup2'ing something to it, you're disrupting stdout in the process.
From the man page on dup2: dup2() makes newfd be the copy of oldfd, closing newfd first if necessary. Thus when you call dup2(fd[0], STDIN_FILENO) you are breaking stdout.
You state that fprintf() is working but printf() is not... what path are you using for fprintf()? If you're using stderr then it makes perfect sense that it would continue to work, since you haven't done anything with that path.
I'm writing a fake shell, where I create a child process and then call execvp(). In the normal shell, when I enter an unknown command such as 'hello' it returns 'hello: Command not found.' However, when I pass hello into execvp(), it doesn't return any error by default and just continues running the rest of my program like nothing happened. What's the easiest way to find out if nothing was actually run? here's my code:
if(fork() == 0)
{
execvp(cmd, args);
}
else
{
int status = 0;
int corpse = wait(&status);
printf(Child %d exited with a status of %d\n", corpse, status);
}
I know that if corpse < 0, then it's an unknown command, but there are other conditions in my code not listed where I don't want to wait (such as if & is entered at the end of a command). Any suggestions?
All of the exec methods can return -1 if there was an error (errno is set appropriately). You aren't checking the result of execvp so if it fails, the rest of your program will continue executing. You could have something like this to prevent the rest of your program from executing:
if (execvp(cmd, args) == -1)
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
You also want to check the result of fork() for <0.
You have two independent concerns.
1) is the return value of execvp. It shouldn't return. If it does there is a problem. Here's what I get execvp'ing a bad command. You don't want to wait if execvp fails. Always check the return values.
int res = execvp(argv[1], argv);
printf ("res is %i %s\n", res, strerror(errno));
// => res is -1 No such file or directory
2) The other concern is background processes and such. That's the job of a shell and you're going to need to figure out when your program should wait immediately and when you want to save the pid from fork and wait on it later.
Is it possible to wait for all processes launched by a child process in Windows? I can't modify the child or grandchild processes.
Specifically, here's what I want to do. My process launches uninstallA.exe. The process uninistallA.exe launches uninstallB.exe and immediately exits, and uninstallB.exe runs for a while. I'd like to wait for uninstallB.exe to exit so that I can know when the uninstall is finished.
Create a Job Object with CreateJobObject. Use CreateProcess to start UninstallA.exe in a suspended state. Assign that new process to your job object with AssignProcessToJobObject. Start UninstallA.exe running by calling ResumeThread on the handle of the thread you got back from CreateProcess.
Then the hard part: wait for the job object to complete its execution. Unfortunately, this is quite a bit more complex than anybody would reasonably hope for. The basic idea is that you create an I/O completion port, then you create the object object, associate it with the I/O completion port, and finally wait on the I/O completion port (getting its status with GetQueuedCompletionStatus). Raymond Chen has a demonstration (and explanation of how this came about) on his blog.
Here's a technique that, while not infallible, can be useful if for some reason you can't use a job object. The idea is to create an anonymous pipe and let the child process inherit the handle to the write end of the pipe.
Typically, grandchild processes will also inherit the write end of the pipe. In particular, processes launched by cmd.exe (e.g., from a batch file) will inherit handles.
Once the child process has exited, the parent process closes its handle to the write end of the pipe, and then attempts to read from the pipe. Since nobody is writing to the pipe, the read operation will block indefinitely. (Of course you can use threads or asynchronous I/O if you want to keep doing stuff while waiting for the grandchildren.)
When (and only when) the last handle to the write end of the pipe is closed, the write end of the pipe is automatically destroyed. This breaks the pipe and the read operation completes and reports an ERROR_BROKEN_PIPE failure.
I've been using this code (and earlier versions of the same code) in production for a number of years.
// pwatch.c
//
// Written in 2011 by Harry Johnston, University of Waikato, New Zealand.
// This code has been placed in the public domain. It may be freely
// used, modified, and distributed. However it is provided with no
// warranty, either express or implied.
//
// Launches a process with an inherited pipe handle,
// and doesn't exit until (a) the process has exited
// and (b) all instances of the pipe handle have been closed.
//
// This effectively waits for any child processes to exit,
// PROVIDED the child processes were created with handle
// inheritance enabled. This is usually but not always
// true.
//
// In particular if you launch a command shell (cmd.exe)
// any commands launched from that command shell will be
// waited on.
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
void error(const wchar_t * message, DWORD err) {
wchar_t msg[512];
swprintf_s(msg, sizeof(msg)/sizeof(*msg), message, err);
printf("pwatch: %ws\n", msg);
MessageBox(NULL, msg, L"Error in pwatch utility", MB_OK | MB_ICONEXCLAMATION | MB_SYSTEMMODAL);
ExitProcess(err);
}
int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
LPWSTR lpCmdLine = GetCommandLine();
wchar_t ch;
DWORD dw, returncode;
HANDLE piperead, pipewrite;
STARTUPINFO si;
PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES sa;
char buffer[1];
while (ch = *(lpCmdLine++)) {
if (ch == '"') while (ch = *(lpCmdLine++)) if (ch == '"') break;
if (ch == ' ') break;
}
while (*lpCmdLine == ' ') lpCmdLine++;
sa.nLength = sizeof(sa);
sa.bInheritHandle = TRUE;
sa.lpSecurityDescriptor = NULL;
if (!CreatePipe(&piperead, &pipewrite, &sa, 1)) error(L"Unable to create pipes: %u", GetLastError());
GetStartupInfo(&si);
if (!CreateProcess(NULL, lpCmdLine, NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0, NULL, NULL, &si, &pi))
error(L"Error %u creating process.", GetLastError());
if (WaitForSingleObject(pi.hProcess, INFINITE) == WAIT_FAILED) error(L"Error %u waiting for process.", GetLastError());
if (!GetExitCodeProcess(pi.hProcess, &returncode)) error(L"Error %u getting exit code.", GetLastError());
CloseHandle(pipewrite);
if (ReadFile(piperead, buffer, 1, &dw, NULL)) {
error(L"Unexpected data received from pipe; bug in application being watched?", ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE);
}
dw = GetLastError();
if (dw != ERROR_BROKEN_PIPE) error(L"Unexpected error %u reading from pipe.", dw);
return returncode;
}
There is not a generic way to wait for all grandchildren but for your specific case you may be able to hack something together. You know you are looking for a specific process instance. I would first wait for uninstallA.exe to exit (using WaitForSingleObject) because at that point you know that uninstallB.exe has been started. Then use EnumProcesses and GetProcessImageFileName from PSAPI to find the running uninstallB.exe instance. If you don't find it you know it has already finished, otherwise you can wait for it.
An additional complication is that if you need to support versions of Windows older than XP you can't use GetProcessImageFileName, and for Windows NT you can't use PSAPI at all. For Windows 2000 you can use GetModuleFileNameEx but it has some caveats that mean it might fail sometimes (check docs). If you have to support NT then look up Toolhelp32.
Yes this is super ugly.
Use a named mutex.
One possibility is to install Cygwin and then use the ps command to watch for the grandchild to exit