Can my nginx module make a connection in the master process? - plugins

I'm writing an nginx module that wants to subscribe to a zeromq pubsub socket and update an in-memory data-structure based on the messages it receives. To save bandwidth, it makes sense that only one process should make the subscription, and the data structure should be in shm so that all processes can make use of it. To me it seems natural that that one process should be the master (since if it was a worker, the code would have to somehow decide which worker).
But when I call ngx_get_connection from my init_master or init_module callbacks, it segfaults, apparently due to ngx_cycle not being initialized yet. Google searches on plugins doing work in the master process seem pretty pessimistic. Is there a better way to accomplish my goal of making a single outgoing connection to the pubsub socket per server, regardless of how many workers it has?
Here's a sample of code that works in a worker context but not from the master:
void *zmq_context = zmq_ctx_new();
void *control_socket = zmq_socket(zmq_context, ZMQ_SUB);
int control_fd;
size_t fdsize = sizeof(int);
ngx_connection_t *control_connection;
zmq_connect(control_socket, "tcp://somewhere:1234");
zmq_setsockopt(control_socket, ZMQ_SUBSCRIBE, "", 0);
zmq_getsockopt(control_socket, ZMQ_FD, &control_fd, &fdsize);
control_connection = ngx_get_connection(control_fd, cycle->log);
control_connection->read->handler = my_read_handler;
control_connection->read->log = cycle->log;
ngx_add_event(control_connection->read, NGX_READ_EVENT, 0);
and elsewhere
void my_read_handler (ngx_event_t *ev) {
int events;
size_t events_size = sizeof(events);
zmq_getsockopt(control_socket, ZMQ_EVENTS, &events, &events_size);
while (events & ZMQ_POLLIN) {
/* ...
read a message, do something with it
... */
events = 0;
zmq_getsockopt(control_socket, ZMQ_EVENTS, &events, &events_size);
}
}

To save bandwidth, it makes sense that only one process should make the subscription, and the data structure should be in shm so that all processes can make use of it. To me it seems natural that that one process should be the master (since if it was a worker, the code would have to somehow decide which worker).
As I already said, all you need is to decline your natural idea and just use one worker process for your purpose.
Which worker? Well, let it be the first one started.

Related

Anylogic: Queue TimeOut blocks flow

I have a pretty simple Anylogic DE model where POs are launched regularly, and a certain amount of material gets to the incoming Queue in one shot (See Sample Picture below). Then the Manufacturing process starts using that material at a regular rate, but I want to check if the material in the queue gets outdated, so I'm using the TimeOut option of that queue, in order to scrap the outdated material (older than 40wks).
The problem is that every time that some material gets scrapped through this Timeout exit, the downstream Manufacturing process "stops" pulling more material, instead of continuing, and it does not get restarted until a new batch of material gets received into the Queue.
What am I doing wrong here? Thanks a lot in advance!!
Kindest regards
Your situation is interesting because there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what you're doing. So even though what you are doing seems to be correct, I will provide you with a workaround. Instead of the Queue block, use a Wait block. You can assign a timeout and link the timeout port just like you did for the queue (seem image at the end of the answer).
In the On Enter field of the wait block (which I will assume is named Fridge), write the following code:
if( MFG.size() < MFG.capacity ) {
self.free(agent);
}
In the On Enter of MFG block write the following:
if( self.size() < self.capacity && Fridge.size() > 0 ) {
Fridge.free(Fridge.get(0));
}
And finally, in the On Exit of your MFG block write the following:
if( Fridge.size() > 0 ) {
Fridge.free(Fridge.get(0));
}
What we are doing in the above, is we are manually pushing the agents. Each time an agent is processed, the model checks if there is capacity to send more, if yes, a new agent is sent.
I know this is an unpleasant workaround, but it provides you with a solution until AnyLogic support can figure it out.

(Laravel 5) Monitor and optionally cancel an ALREADY RUNNING job on queue

I need to achieve the ability to monitor and be able to cancel an ALREADY RUNNING job on queue.
There's a lot of answers about deleting QUEUED jobs, but not on an already running one.
This is the situation: I have a "job", which consists of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS rows on a database, that need to be queried ONE BY ONE against a web service.
Every row needs to be picked up, queried against a web service, stored the response and its status updated.
I had that already working as a Command (launching from / outputting to console), but now I need to implement queues in order to allow piling up more jobs from more users.
So far I've seen Horizon (which doesn't runs on Windows due to missing process control libs). However, in some demos seen around it lacks (I believe) a couple things I need:
Dynamically configurable timeout (the whole job may take more than 12 hours, depending on the number of rows to process on the selected job)
Ability to CANCEL an ALREADY RUNNING job.
I also considered the option to generate EACH REQUEST as a new job instead of seeing a "job" as the whole collection of rows (this would overcome the timeout thing), but that would give me a Horizon "pending jobs" list of hundreds of thousands of records per job, and that would kill the browser (I know Redis can handle this without itching at all). Further, I guess is not possible to cancel "all jobs belonging to X tag".
I've been thinking about hitting an API route, fire the job and decouple it from the app, but I'm seeing that this requires forking processes.
For the ability to cancel, I would implement a database with job_id, and when the user hits an API to cancel a job, I'd mark it as "halted". On every loop I would check its status and if it finds "halted" then kill itself.
If I've missed any aspect just holler and I'll add it or clarify about it.
So I'm asking for an advice here since I'm new to Laravel: how could I achieve this?
So I finally came up with this (a bit clunky) solution:
In Controller:
public function cancelJob()
{
$jobs = DB::table('jobs')->get();
# I could use a specific ID and user owner filter, etc.
foreach ($jobs as $job) {
DB::table('jobs')->delete($job->id);
}
# This is a file that... well, it's self explaining
touch(base_path(config('files.halt_process_signal')));
return "Job cancelled - It will stop soon";
}
In job class (inside model::chunk() function)
# CHECK FOR HALT SIGNAL AND [OPTIONALLY] STOP THE PROCESS
if ($this->service->shouldHaltProcess()) {
# build stats, do some cleanup, log, etc...
$this->halted = true;
$this->service->stopProcess();
# This FALSE is what it makes the chunk() method to stop looping
return false;
}
In service class:
/**
* Checks the existence of the 'Halt Process Signal' file
*
* #return bool
*/
public function shouldHaltProcess() :bool
{
return file_exists($this->config['files.halt_process_signal']);
}
/**
* Stop the batch process
*
* #return void
*/
public function stopProcess() :void
{
logger()->info("=== HALT PROCESS SIGNAL FOUND - STOPPING THE PROCESS ===");
$this->deleteHaltProcessSignalFile();
return ;
}
It doesn't looks quite elegant, but it works.
I've surfed the whole web and many goes for Horizon or other tools that doesn't fit my case.
If anyone has a better way to achieve this, it's welcome to share.
Laravel queue have 3 important config:
1. retry_after
2. timeout
3. tries
See more: https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/queues
Dynamically configurable timeout (the whole job may take more than 12
hours, depending on the number of rows to process on the selected job)
I think you can config timeout + retry_after about 24h.
Ability to CANCEL an ALREADY RUNNING job.
Delete job in jobs table
Delete process by process id in your server
Hope it help you :)

MS-MPI MPI_Barrier: sometimes hangs indefinitely, sometimes doesn't

I'm using the MPI.NET library, and I've recently moved my application to a bigger cluster (more COMPUTE-NODES). I've started seeing various collective functions hang indefinitely, but only sometimes. About half the time a job will complete, the rest of the time it'll hang. I've seen it happen with Scatter, Broadcast, and Barrier.
I've put a MPI.Communicator.world.Barrier() call (MPI.NET) at the start of the application, and created trace logs (using the MPIEXEC.exe /trace switch).
C# code snippet:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var hostName = System.Environment.MachineName;
Logger.Trace($"Program.Main entered on {hostName}");
string[] mpiArgs = null;
MPI.Environment myEnvironment = null;
try
{
Logger.Trace($"Trying to instantiated on MPI.Environment on {hostName}. Is currently initialized? {MPI.Environment.Initialized}");
myEnvironment = new MPI.Environment(ref mpiArgs);
Logger.Trace($"Is currently initialized?{MPI.Environment.Initialized}. {hostName} is waiting at Barrier... ");
Communicator.world.Barrier(); // CODE HANGS HERE!
Logger.Trace($"{hostName} is past Barrier");
}
catch (Exception envEx)
{
Logger.Error(envEx, "Could not instantiate MPI.Environment object");
}
// rest of implementation here...
}
I can see the msmpi.dll's MPI_Barrier function being called in the log, and I can see messages being sent and received thereafter for a passing and a failing example. For the passing example, messages are sent/received and then the MPI_Barrier function Leave is logged.
For the failing example it look like one (or more) of the send messages is lost - it is never received by the target. Am I correct in thinking that messages lost within the MPI_Barrier call will mean that the processes never synchronize, therefore all get stuck at the Communicator.world.Barrier() call?
What could be causing this to happen intermittently? Could poor network performance between the COMPUTE-NODES be a cause?
I'm running MS HPC Pack 2008 R2, so the version of MS-MPI is pretty old, v2.0.
EDIT - Additional information
If I keep a task running within the same node, then this issue does not happen. For example, if I run a task using 8 cores on one node then fine, but if i use 9 cores on two nodes I'll see this issue ~50% of the time.
Also, we have two clusters in use and this only happens on one of them. They are both virtualized environments, but appear to be set up identically.

Play 1.2.3 framework - Right way to commit transaction

We have a HTTP end-point that takes a long time to run and can also be called concurrently by users. As part of this request, we update the model inside a synchronized block so that other (possibly concurrent) requests pick up that change.
E.g.
MyModel m = null;
synchronized (lockObject) {
m = MyModel.findById(id);
if (m.status == PENDING) {
m.status = ACTIVE;
} else {
//render a response back to user that the operation is not allowed
}
m.save(); //Is not expected to be called unless we set m.status = ACTIVE
}
//Long running operation continues here. It can involve further changes to instance "m"
The reason for the synchronized block is to ensure that even concurrent requests get to pick up the latest status. However, the underlying JPA does not commit my changes (m.save()) until the request is complete. Since this is a long-running request, I do not want to wait until the request is complete and still want to ensure that other callers are notified of the change in status. I tried to call "m.em().flush(); JPA.em().getTransaction().commit();" after m.save(), but that makes the transaction unavailable for the subsequent action as part of the same request. Can I just given "JPA.em().getTransaction().begin();" and let Play handle the transaction from then on? If not, what is the best way to handle this use-case?
UPDATE:
Based on the response, I modified my code as follows:
MyModel m = null;
synchronized (lockObject) {
m = MyModel.findById(id);
if (m.status == PENDING) {
m.status = ACTIVE;
} else {
//render a response back to user that the operation is not allowed
}
m.save(); //Is not expected to be called unless we set m.status = ACTIVE
}
new MyModelUpdateJob(m.id).now();
And in my job, I have the following line:
doJob() {
MyModel m = MyModel.findById(id);
print m.status; //This still prints the old status as-if m.save() had no effect...
}
What am I missing?
Put your update code in a job an call
new MyModelUpdateJob(id).now().get();
thus the update will be done in another transaction that is commited at the end of the job
ouch, as soon as you add more play servers, you will be in trouble. You may want to play with optimistic locking in your example or and I advise against it pessimistic locking....ick.
HOWEVER, looking at your code, maybe read the article Building on Quicksand. I am not sure you need a synchronized block in that case at all...try to go after being idempotent.
In your case if
1. user 1 and user 2 both call that method and it is pending, then it goes to active(Idempotent)
If user 1 or user 2 wins, well that would be like you had the synchronization block anyways.
I am sure however you have a more complex scenario not shown here, BUT READ that article Building on Quicksand as it really changes the traditional way of thinking and is how google and amazon and very large scale systems operate.
Another option for distributed transactions across play servers is zookeeper which the big large nosql guys use BUT only as a last resort ;) ;)
later,
Dean

SQLConnection Pooling - Handling InvalidOperationExceptions

I am designing a Highly Concurrent CCR Application in which it is imperative that I DO NOT Block or Send to sleep a Thread.
I am hitting SQLConnection Pool issues - Specifically getting InvalidOperationExceptions when trying to call SqlConnection.Open
I can potentially retry a hand full of times, but this isn't really solving the problem.
The ideal solution for me would be a method of periodically re-checking the connection for availablity that doesn't require a thread being tied up
Any ideas?
[Update]
Here is a related problem/solution posted at another forum
The solution requires a manually managed connection pool. I'd rather have a solution which is more dynamic i.e. kicks in when needed
Harry, I've run into this as well, also whilst using the CCR. My experience was that having completely decoupled my dispatcher threads from blocking on any I/O, I could consume and process work items much faster than the SqlConnection pool could cope with. Once the maximum-pool-limit was hit, I ran into the sort of errors you are seeing.
The simplest solution is to pre-allocate a number of non-pooled asynchronous SqlConnection objects and post them to some central Port<SqlConnection> object. Then whenever you need to execute a command, do so within an iterator with something like this:
public IEnumerator<ITask> Execute(SqlCommand someCmd)
{
// Assume that 'connPort' has been posted with some open
// connection objects.
try
{
// Wait for a connection to become available and assign
// it to the command.
yield return connPort.Receive(item => someCmd.Connection = item);
// Wait for the async command to complete.
var iarPort = new Port<IAsyncResult>();
var iar = someCmd.BeginExecuteNonQuery(iarPort.Post, null);
yield return iarPort.Receive();
// Process the response.
var rc = someCmd.EndExecuteNonQuery(iar);
// ...
}
finally
{
// Put the connection back in the 'connPort' pool
// when we're done.
if (someCmd.Connection != null)
connPort.Post(someCmd.Connection);
}
}
The nice thing about using the Ccr is that it is trivial to add the following the features to this basic piece of code.
Timeout - just make the initial receive (for an available connection), a 'Choice' with a timeout port.
Adjust the pool size dynamically. To increase the size of the pool, just post a new open SqlConnection to 'connPort'. To decrease the size of the pool, yield a receive on the connPort, and then close the received connection and throw it away.
Yes, connections are kept open and out of the connection pool. In the above example, the port is the pool.