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Net::Daemon(3pm)      User Contributed Perl Documentation     Net::Daemon(3pm)

NAME
       Net::Daemon - Perl extension for portable daemons

SYNOPSIS
	 # Create a subclass of Net::Daemon
	 require Net::Daemon;
	 package MyDaemon;
	 @MyDaemon::ISA = qw(Net::Daemon);

	 sub Run ($) {
	   # This function does the real work; it is invoked whenever a
	   # new connection is made.
	 }

DESCRIPTION
       Net::Daemon is an abstract base class for implementing portable server
       applications in a very simple way. The module is designed for Perl
       5.005 and threads, but can work with fork() and Perl 5.004.

       The Net::Daemon class offers methods for the most common tasks a daemon
       needs: Starting up, logging, accepting clients, authorization,
       restricting its own environment for security and doing the true work.
       You only have to override those methods that aren't appropriate for
       you, but typically inheriting will safe you a lot of work anyways.

       Constructors

	 $server = Net::Daemon->new($attr, $options);

	 $connection = $server->Clone($socket);

       Two constructors are available: The new method is called upon startup
       and creates an object that will basically act as an anchor over the
       complete program. It supports command line parsing via "Getopt::Long
       (3)".

       Arguments of new are $attr, an hash ref of attributes (see below) and
       $options an array ref of options, typically command line arguments (for
       example \@ARGV) that will be passed to Getopt::Long::GetOptions.

       The second constructor is Clone: It is called whenever a client
       connects. It receives the main server object as input and returns a new
       object. This new object will be passed to the methods that finally do
       the true work of communicating with the client. Communication occurs
       over the socket $socket, Clone's argument.

       Possible object attributes and the corresponding command line arguments
       are:

       catchint (--nocatchint)
	   On some systems, in particular Solaris, the functions accept(),
	   read() and so on are not safe against interrupts by signals. For
	   example, if the user raises a USR1 signal (as typically used to
	   reread config files), then the function returns an error EINTR.  If
	   the catchint option is on (by default it is, use --nocatchint to
	   turn this off), then the package will ignore EINTR errors whereever
	   possible.

       chroot (--chroot=dir)
	   (UNIX only)	After doing a bind(), change root directory to the
	   given directory by doing a chroot(). This is usefull for security
	   operations, but it restricts programming a lot. For example, you
	   typically have to load external Perl extensions before doing a
	   chroot(), or you need to create hard links to Unix sockets. This is
	   typically done in the config file, see the --configfile option. See
	   also the --group and --user options.

	   If you don't know chroot(), think of an FTP server where you can
	   see a certain directory tree only after logging in.

       clients
	   An array ref with a list of clients. Clients are hash refs, the
	   attributes accept (0 for denying access and 1 for permitting) and
	   mask, a Perl regular expression for the clients IP number or its
	   host name. See "Access control" below.

       configfile (--configfile=file)
	   Net::Daemon supports the use of config files. These files are
	   assumed to contain a single hash ref that overrides the arguments
	   of the new method. However, command line arguments in turn take
	   precedence over the config file. See the "Config File" section
	   below for details on the config file.

       debug (--debug)
	   Turn debugging mode on. Mainly this asserts that logging messages
	   of level "debug" are created.

       facility (--facility=mode)
	   (UNIX only) Facility to use for "Sys::Syslog (3)". The default is
	   daemon.

       group (--group=gid)
	   After doing a bind(), change the real and effective GID to the
	   given.  This is usefull, if you want your server to bind to a
	   privileged port (<1024), but don't want the server to execute as
	   root. See also the --user option.

	   GID's can be passed as group names or numeric values.

       localaddr (--localaddr=ip)
	   By default a daemon is listening to any IP number that a machine
	   has. This attribute allows to restrict the server to the given IP
	   number.

       localpath (--localpath=path)
	   If you want to restrict your server to local services only, you'll
	   prefer using Unix sockets, if available. In that case you can use
	   this option for setting the path of the Unix socket being created.
	   This option implies --proto=unix.

       localport (--localport=port)
	   This attribute sets the port on which the daemon is listening. It
	   must be given somehow, as there's no default.

       logfile (--logfile=file)
	   By default logging messages will be written to the syslog (Unix) or
	   to the event log (Windows NT). On other operating systems you need
	   to specify a log file. The special value "STDERR" forces logging to
	   stderr.

       loop-child (--loop-child)
	   This option forces creation of a new child for loops. (See the
	   loop-timeout option.) By default the loops are serialized.

       loop-timeout (--loop-timeout=secs)
	   Some servers need to take an action from time to time. For example
	   the Net::Daemon::Spooler attempts to empty its spooling queue every
	   5 minutes. If this option is set to a positive value (zero being
	   the default), then the server will call its Loop method every
	   "loop-timeout" seconds.

	   Don't trust too much on the precision of the interval: It depends
	   on a number of factors, in particular the execution time of the
	   Loop() method. The loop is implemented by using the select
	   function. If you need an exact interval, you should better try to
	   use the alarm() function and a signal handler. (And don't forget to
	   look at the catchint option!)

	   It is recommended to use the loop-child option in conjunction with
	   loop-timeout.

       mode (--mode=modename)
	   The Net::Daemon server can run in three different modes, depending
	   on the environment.

	   If you are running Perl 5.005 and did compile it for threads, then
	   the server will create a new thread for each connection. The thread
	   will execute the server's Run() method and then terminate. This
	   mode is the default, you can force it with "--mode=ithreads" or
	   "--mode=threads".

	   If threads are not available, but you have a working fork(), then
	   the server will behave similar by creating a new process for each
	   connection.	This mode will be used automatically in the absence of
	   threads or if you use the "--mode=fork" option.

	   Finally there's a single-connection mode: If the server has
	   accepted a connection, he will enter the Run() method. No other
	   connections are accepted until the Run() method returns. This
	   operation mode is useful if you have neither threads nor fork(),
	   for example on the Macintosh.  For debugging purposes you can force
	   this mode with "--mode=single".

	   When running in mode single, you can still handle multiple clients
	   at a time by preforking multiple child processes. The number of
	   childs is configured with the option "--childs".

       childs
	   Use this parameter to let Net::Daemon run in prefork mode, which
	   means it forks the number of childs processes you give with this
	   parameter, and all child handle connections concurrently. The
	   difference to fork mode is, that the child processes continue to
	   run after a connection has terminated and are able to accept a new
	   connection.	This is useful for caching inside the childs process
	   (e.g.  DBI::ProxyServer connect_cached attribute)

       options
	   Array ref of Command line options that have been passed to the
	   server object via the new method.

       parent
	   When creating an object with Clone the original object becomes the
	   parent of the new object. Objects created with new usually don't
	   have a parent, thus this attribute is not set.

       pidfile (--pidfile=file)
	   (UNIX only) If this option is present, a PID file will be created
	   at the given location.

       proto (--proto=proto)
	   The transport layer to use, by default tcp or unix for a Unix
	   socket. It is not yet possible to combine both.

       socket
	   The socket that is connected to the client; passed as $client
	   argument to the Clone method. If the server object was created with
	   new, this attribute can be undef, as long as the Bind method isn't
	   called.  Sockets are assumed to be IO::Socket objects.

       user (--user=uid)
	   After doing a bind(), change the real and effective UID to the
	   given.  This is usefull, if you want your server to bind to a
	   privileged port (<1024), but don't want the server to execute as
	   root. See also the --group and the --chroot options.

	   UID's can be passed as group names or numeric values.

       version (--version)
	   Supresses startup of the server; instead the version string will be
	   printed and the program exits immediately.

       Note that most of these attributes (facility, mode, localaddr,
       localport, pidfile, version) are meaningfull only at startup. If you
       set them later, they will be simply ignored. As almost all attributes
       have appropriate defaults, you will typically use the localport
       attribute only.

       Command Line Parsing

	 my $optionsAvailable = Net::Daemon->Options();

	 print Net::Daemon->Version(), "\n";

	 Net::Daemon->Usage();

       The Options method returns a hash ref of possible command line options.
       The keys are option names, the values are again hash refs with the
       following keys:

       template
	   An option template that can be passed to Getopt::Long::GetOptions.

       description
	   A description of this option, as used in Usage

       The Usage method prints a list of all possible options and returns.  It
       uses the Version method for printing program name and version.

       Config File

       If the config file option is set in the command line options or in the
       in the "new" args, then the method

	 $server->ReadConfigFile($file, $options, $args)

       is invoked. By default the config file is expected to contain Perl
       source that returns a hash ref of options. These options override the
       "new" args and will in turn be overwritten by the command line options,
       as present in the $options hash ref.

       A typical config file might look as follows, we use the
       DBI::ProxyServer as an example:

	   # Load external modules; this is not required unless you use
	   # the chroot() option.
	   #require DBD::mysql;
	   #require DBD::CSV;

	   {
	       # 'chroot' => '/var/dbiproxy',
	       'facility' => 'daemon',
	       'pidfile' => '/var/dbiproxy/dbiproxy.pid',
	       'user' => 'nobody',
	       'group' => 'nobody',
	       'localport' => '1003',
	       'mode' => 'fork'

	       # Access control
	       'clients' => [
		   # Accept the local
		   {
		       'mask' => '^192\.168\.1\.\d+$',
		       'accept' => 1
		   },
		   # Accept myhost.company.com
		   {
		       'mask' => '^myhost\.company\.com$',
		       'accept' => 1
		   }
		   # Deny everything else
		   {
		       'mask' => '.*',
		       'accept' => 0
		   }
	       ]
	   }

       Access control

       The Net::Daemon package supports a host based access control scheme. By
       default access is open for anyone. However, if you create an attribute
       $self->{'clients'}, typically in the config file, then access control
       is disabled by default. For any connection the client list is
       processed: The clients attribute is an array ref to a list of hash
       refs. Any of the hash refs may contain arbitrary attributes, including
       the following:

       mask    A Perl regular expression that has to match the clients IP
	       number or its host name. The list is processed from the left to
	       the right, whenever a 'mask' attribute matches, then the
	       related hash ref is choosen as client and processing the client
	       list stops.

       accept  This may be set to true or false (default when omitting the
	       attribute), the former means accepting the client.

       Event logging

	 $server->Log($level, $format, @args);
	 $server->Debug($format, @args);
	 $server->Error($format, @args);
	 $server->Fatal($format, @args);

       The Log method is an interface to "Sys::Syslog (3)" or "Win32::EventLog
       (3)". It's arguments are $level, a syslog level like debug, notice or
       err, a format string in the style of printf and the format strings
       arguments.

       The Debug and Error methods are shorthands for calling Log with a level
       of debug and err, respectively. The Fatal method is like Error, except
       it additionally throws the given message as exception.

       See Net::Daemon::Log(3) for details.

       Flow of control

	 $server->Bind();
	 # The following inside Bind():
	 if ($connection->Accept()) {
	     $connection->Run();
	 } else {
	     $connection->Log('err', 'Connection refused');
	 }

       The Bind method is called by the application when the server should
       start. Typically this can be done right after creating the server
       object $server. Bind usually never returns, except in case of errors.

       When a client connects, the server uses Clone to derive a connection
       object $connection from the server object. A new thread or process is
       created that uses the connection object to call your classes Accept
       method. This method is intended for host authorization and should
       return either FALSE (refuse the client) or TRUE (accept the client).

       If the client is accepted, the Run method is called which does the true
       work. The connection is closed when Run returns and the corresponding
       thread or process exits.

       Error Handling

       All methods are supposed to throw Perl exceptions in case of errors.

MULTITHREADING CONSIDERATIONS
       All methods are working with lexically scoped data and handle data
       only, the exception being the OpenLog method which is invoked before
       threading starts. Thus you are safe as long as you don't share handles
       between threads. I strongly recommend that your application behaves
       similar. (This doesn't apply to mode 'ithreads'.)

EXAMPLE
       As an example we'll write a simple calculator server. After connecting
       to this server you may type expressions, one per line. The server
       evaluates the expressions and prints the result. (Note this is an
       example, in real life we'd never implement such a security hole. :-)

       For the purpose of example we add a command line option --base that
       takes 'hex', 'oct' or 'dec' as values: The servers output will use the
       given base.

	 # -*- perl -*-
	 #
	 # Calculator server
	 #
	 require 5.004;
	 use strict;

	 require Net::Daemon;

	 package Calculator;

	 use vars qw($VERSION @ISA);
	 $VERSION = '0.01';
	 @ISA = qw(Net::Daemon); # to inherit from Net::Daemon

	 sub Version ($) { 'Calculator Example Server, 0.01'; }

	 # Add a command line option "--base"
	 sub Options ($) {
	     my($self) = @_;
	     my($options) = $self->SUPER::Options();
	     $options->{'base'} = { 'template' => 'base=s',
				    'description' => '--base		      '
					   . 'dec (default), hex or oct'
				     };
	     $options;
	 }

	 # Treat command line option in the constructor
	 sub new ($$;$) {
	     my($class, $attr, $args) = @_;
	     my($self) = $class->SUPER::new($attr, $args);
	     if ($self->{'parent'}) {
		 # Called via Clone()
		 $self->{'base'} = $self->{'parent'}->{'base'};
	     } else {
		 # Initial call
		 if ($self->{'options'}	 &&  $self->{'options'}->{'base'}) {
		     $self->{'base'} = $self->{'options'}->{'base'}
		 }
	     }
	     if (!$self->{'base'}) {
		 $self->{'base'} = 'dec';
	     }
	     $self;
	 }

	 sub Run ($) {
	     my($self) = @_;
	     my($line, $sock);
	     $sock = $self->{'socket'};
	     while (1) {
		 if (!defined($line = $sock->getline())) {
		     if ($sock->error()) {
			 $self->Error("Client connection error %s",
				      $sock->error());
		     }
		     $sock->close();
		     return;
		 }
		 $line =~ s/\s+$//; # Remove CRLF
		 my($result) = eval $line;
		 my($rc);
		 if ($self->{'base'} eq 'hex') {
		     $rc = printf $sock ("%x\n", $result);
		 } elsif ($self->{'base'} eq 'oct') {
		     $rc = printf $sock ("%o\n", $result);
		 } else {
		     $rc = printf $sock ("%d\n", $result);
		 }
		 if (!$rc) {
		     $self->Error("Client connection error %s",
				  $sock->error());
		     $sock->close();
		     return;
		 }
	     }
	 }

	 package main;

	 my $server = Calculator->new({'pidfile' => 'none',
				       'localport' => 2000}, \@ARGV);
	 $server->Bind();

KNOWN PROBLEMS
       Most, or even any, known problems are related to the Sys::Syslog module
       which is by default used for logging events under Unix. I'll quote some
       examples:

       Usage: Sys::Syslog::_PATH_LOG at ...
	   This problem is treated in perl bug 20000712.003. A workaround is
	   changing line 277 of Syslog.pm to

	     my $syslog = &_PATH_LOG() || croak "_PATH_LOG not found in syslog.ph";

AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT
	 Net::Daemon is Copyright (C) 1998, Jochen Wiedmann
					    Am Eisteich 9
					    72555 Metzingen
					    Germany

					    Phone: +49 7123 14887
					    Email: joe@ispsoft.de

	 All rights reserved.

	 You may distribute this package under the terms of either the GNU
	 General Public License or the Artistic License, as specified in the
	 Perl README file.

SEE ALSO
       RPC::pServer(3), Netserver::Generic(3), Net::Daemon::Log(3),
       Net::Daemon::Test(3)

perl v5.10.0			  2007-06-17		      Net::Daemon(3pm)
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