I'm on an Assignment.
The Assignment is making virtual Real Time Operating System on Linux System(on Ubuntu).
My problem is SIGALRM and it's handler for Scheduler.
void scheduler(int signo) {
/*variables */
printf("Scheduler awake!!\n");
/* Do
Schedule */
}
int RunScheduler(void) {
signal(SIGALRM, scheduler);
alarm(1);
while(1)
pause();
return 0;
}
int main() {
RunScheduler();
}
The function scheduler(handler) does not work. alarm(1) works, but just paused after alarm(1).
Is there any reason signal handler does not work??
The very same code works correctly on my machine.
I have used the gcc compiler that comes bundled with Ubuntu. Are you using the same compiler?
Related
static void AlarmHandler(int sig) ;
int i=0;
jmp_buf mark;
int main(int argc, char * argv[]){
setjmp(mark);
signal(SIGALRM, AlarmHandler);
alarm(2);
while(1);
return 0;
}
static void AlarmHandler(int sig) {
signal(SIGALRM, SIG_IGN);
printf("I am in AlarmHandler: %d \n",i);
i++;
longjmp(mark, 0);
}
When I run this code the program goes through the AlarmHandler only once and then it just stays trapped inside the while loop. Can someone explain why?
Your program might work as you expected on some POSIXy operating systems -- in fact, it does work as you expected on the computer I'm typing this on. However, it relies on a bunch of unspecified behavior relating to signals, and I think you've tripped over one of them: I think that on your computer, a signal is "blocked" — it can't be delivered again — while its handler is executing, and also, jumping out of the handler with longjmp does not unblock the signal. So you go around the loop once and then the second SIGALRM is never delivered because it's blocked. There are several other, related problems.
You can nail down all of the unspecified behavior and make the program reliable on all POSIXy operating systems, but you have to use different functions to set things up: sigsetjmp and sigaction. You should also get rid of the busy-waiting by using sigsuspend instead. A corrected program would look something like this:
#define _XOPEN_SOURCE 700
#include <signal.h>
#include <setjmp.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
static jmp_buf mark;
static void
handle_SIGALRM(int sig)
{
static int signal_count;
signal_count++;
printf("SIGALRM #%u\n", signal_count);
siglongjmp(mark, signal_count);
}
int
main(void)
{
sigset_t mask, omask;
sigemptyset(&mask);
sigaddset(&mask, SIGALRM);
if (sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK, &mask, &omask)) {
perror("sigprocmask");
return 1;
}
struct sigaction sa;
sigfillset(&sa.sa_mask);
sa.sa_flags = 0; // DO interrupt blocking system calls
sa.sa_handler = handle_SIGALRM;
if (sigaction(SIGALRM, &sa, 0)) {
perror("sigaction");
return 1;
}
if (sigsetjmp(mark, 1) >= 4)
return 0;
alarm(1);
sigsuspend(&omask);
perror("shouldn't ever get here");
return 1;
}
I should probably say a few words about signal safety: In this program, it is safe to call printf and siglongjmp from the signal handler, because I have arranged for the SIGALRM only to be deliverable while the main thread of execution is blocked on sigsuspend. (That's what the call to sigprocmask up top does.) If you had anything to do in your main thread of execution besides sleep waiting for the signal to arrive, you would have to be much more careful about what you did in the signal handler, and I would advocate for using pselect and/or the self-pipe trick instead of jumping out of the handler, if at all possible.
I'm building a generic program written in C-UNIX (using Linux so I don't care about BSD or WIN functions), that creates two threads to handle the communication with a server.
void init_threads(int socket_desc) {
pthread_t chat_threads[2];
ret = pthread_create(&chat_threads[0], NULL, receiveMessage, (void*)(long)socket_desc);
PTHREAD_ERROR_HELPER(ret, "Errore creazione thread ricezione messaggi");
ret = pthread_create(&chat_threads[1], NULL, sendMessage, (void*)(long)socket_desc);
PTHREAD_ERROR_HELPER(ret, "Errore creazione thread invio messaggi");
}
Since this program will be launched from shell I want to implement the CTRL-C possibility and so did I with this line of code:
signal(SIGINT,kill_handler);
// and its related function
void kill_handler() {
// retrive threads_id
// call pthread_exit on the two threads
printf("Exit from program cause ctrl-c, bye bye\n");
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
My question is how can I found out the thread ids inside the event handler function and is it correct to call pthread_exit or should I use something else?
Don't call pthread_exit() from a signal handler! It is not required to be async-signal-safe, see signal-safety.
In general, you should do as little as possible in a signal handler. The common idiom is to just set a flag that is periodically checked in your main loop like e.g.
volatile sig_atomic_t exitRequested = 0;
void signal_handler(int signum)
{
exitRequested = 1;
}
int main(void)
{
// init and setup signals
while (!exitRequested)
{
// do work
}
// cleanup
}
Also, use sigaction() for installing signal handlers. See signal() for reasons not to use it.
I programmed a daemon which usually pauses and do something after getting a signal (I use SIGHUP for waking up it to another process).
Here is my code.
...
static volatile sig_atomic_t saw_hup = 0;
static void sighup_handler(int s)
{
saw_hup = 1;
}
int main(void)
{
struct sigaction act_new;
...
sigemptyset(&act_new.sa_mask);
act_new.sa_handler = sighup_handler;
sigaction(SIGHUP, &act_new, NULL);
while(1) {
saw_hup = 0;
pause();
if(saw_hup) {
do_section_A();
}
}
}
As far as I've tested it, it seems that there is some stack for signal, so the signal, which occurs in executing section A, makes the daemon waken up from pause() execute section A again right after finishing section A by previous one.
But, I want the next SIGHUP signal to be blocked and not to execute section A again by it. What I want is to execute section A whenever SIGHUP occurs except for in the middle of section A executed by previous SIGHUP signal. How do I do that?
I think i the problem that section A is executed again right after section A execution by SIGHUP occurred in the middle of section A execution.
Here is my modified code
...
static volatile sig_atomic_t saw_hup = 0;
static void sighup_handler(int s)
{
saw_hup = 1;
}
int main(void)
{
struct sigaction act_new;
...
sigemptyset(&act_new.sa_mask);
act_new.sa_handler = sighup_handler;
sigaction(SIGHUP, &act_new, NULL);
while(1) {
saw_hup = 0;
pause();
if(saw_hup) {
do_section_A();
}
}
}
It seems to work as i wanted. does anybody think there is any problem to this code?
pthread_sigmask() can be used to mask signal in thread. sigprocmask() can be used to mask signal in single thread application.
So I'm trying to call an alarm to display a message "still working.." every second.
I included signal.h.
Outside of my main I have my function: (I never declare/define s for int s)
void display_message(int s); //Function for alarm set up
void display_message(int s) {
printf("copyit: Still working...\n" );
alarm(1); //for every second
signal(SIGALRM, display_message);
}
Then, in my main
while(1)
{
signal(SIGALRM, display_message);
alarm(1); //Alarm signal every second.
That's in there as soon as the loop begins. But the program never outputs the 'still working...' message. What am I doing incorrectly? Thank you, ver much appreciated.
Signal handlers are not supposed to contain "business logic" or make library calls such as printf. See C11 §7.1.4/4 and its footnote:
Thus, a signal handler cannot, in general, call standard library functions.
All the signal handler should do is set a flag to be acted upon by non-interrupt code, and unblock a waiting system call. This program runs correctly and does not risk crashing, even if some I/O or other functionality were added:
#include <signal.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
#include <unistd.h>
volatile sig_atomic_t print_flag = false;
void handle_alarm( int sig ) {
print_flag = true;
}
int main() {
signal( SIGALRM, handle_alarm ); // Install handler first,
alarm( 1 ); // before scheduling it to be called.
for (;;) {
sleep( 5 ); // Pretend to do something. Could also be read() or select().
if ( print_flag ) {
printf( "Hello\n" );
print_flag = false;
alarm( 1 ); // Reschedule.
}
}
}
Move the calls to signal and alarm to just before your loop. Calling alarm over and over at high speed keeps resetting the alarm to be in one second from that point, so you never reach the end of that second!
For example:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <unistd.h>
void display_message(int s) {
printf("copyit: Still working...\n" );
alarm(1); //for every second
signal(SIGALRM, display_message);
}
int main(void) {
signal(SIGALRM, display_message);
alarm(1);
int n = 0;
while (1) {
++n;
}
return 0;
}
Do not call alarm() twice, just call it once in main() to initiate the callback, then once in display_message().
Try this code on Linux (Debian 7.8) :
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
void display_message(int s); //Function for alarm set up
void display_message(int s)
{
printf("copyit: Still working...\n" );
alarm(1); //for every second
signal(SIGALRM, display_message);
}
int main()
{
signal(SIGALRM, display_message);
alarm(1); // Initial timeout setting
while (1)
{
pause();
}
}
The result will be the following one :
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
copyit: Still working...
The alarm() call is for a one off signal.
To repeat an alarm, you have to call alarm() again each time the signal occurs.
Another issue, also, is that you're likely to get EINTR errors. Many system functions get interrupted when you receive a signal. This makes for much more complicated programming since many of the OS functions are affected.
In any event, the correct way to wait for the next SIGALRM is to use the pause() function. Something the others have not mentioned (instead they have tight loops, ugly!)
That being said, what you are trying to do would be much easier with a simple sleep() call as in:
// print a message every second (simplified version)
for(;;)
{
printf("My Message\n");
sleep(1);
}
and such a loop could appear in a separate thread. Then you don't need a Unix signal to implement the feat.
Note: The sleep() function is actually implemented using the same timer as the alarm() and it is clearly mentioned that you should not mix both functions in the same code.
sleep(3) may be implemented using SIGALRM; mixing calls to alarm() and sleep(3) is a bad idea.
(From Linux man alarm)
void alarm_handler(int)
{
alarm(1); // recurring alarm
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
signal(SIGALRM, alarm_handler);
alarm(1);
for(;;)
{
printf("My Message\n");
// ...do other work here if needed...
pause();
}
// not reached (use Ctrl-C to exit)
return 0;
}
You can create variations. For example, if you want the first message to happen after 1 second instead of immediately, move the pause() before the printf().
The "other work" comment supposes that your other work does not take more than 1 second.
It is possible to get the alarm signal on a specific thread if work is required in parallel, however, this can be complicated if any other timers are required (i.e. you can't easily share the alarm() timer with other functions.)
P.S. as mentioned by others, doing your printf() inside the signal handler is not a good idea at all.
There is another version where the alarm() is reset inside main() and the first message appears after one second and the loop runs for 60 seconds (1 minute):
void alarm_handler(int)
{
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
signal(SIGALRM, alarm_handler);
for(int seconds(0); seconds < 60; ++seconds)
{
alarm(1);
// ...do other work here if needed...
pause();
printf("My Message\n");
}
// reached after 1 minute
return 0;
}
Note that with this method, the time when the message will be printed is going to be skewed. The time to print your message is added to the clock before you restart the alarm... so it is always going to be a little over 1 second between each call. The other loop is better in that respect but it still is skewed. For a perfect (much better) timer, the poll() function is much better as you can specify when to wake up next. poll() can be used just and only with a timer. My Snap library uses that capability (look for the run() function, near the bottom of the file). In 2019. I moved that one .cpp file to the eventdispatcher library. The run() function is in the communicator.cpp file.
POSIX permits certain of its functions to be called from signal handling context, the async-signal safe functions, search for "async-sgnal safe" here. (These may be understood as "system calls" rather than library calls). Notably, this includes write(2).
So you could do
void
display_message (int s) {
static char const working_message [] = "copyit: Still working...\n";
write (1, working_message, sizeof working_message - sizeof "");
alarm(1); /* for every second */
}
By the way, precise periodic alarms are better implemented using setitimer(2),
since these will not be subject to drift. Retriggering the alarm via software, as done here, will unavoidably accumulate error over time because of the time spent executing the software as well as scheduling latencies.
In POSIX sigaction(2) superceedes signal(2) for good reason:
the original Unix signal handling model was simple. In particular,
a signal handler was reset to its original "deposition" (e.g., terminate
the process) once it was fired. You would have to re-associate
SIGALRM with display_message() by calling signal() just before
calling alarm() in display_message().
An even more important reason for using sigaction(2) is the
SA_RESTART flag. Normally, system calls are interrupted when
a signal handler is invoked. I.e., when then signal handler returns,
the system call returns an error indication (often -1) and errno is
set to EINTR, interrupted system call. (One reason for this
is to be able to use SIGALRM to effect time outs, another is
to have a higher instance, such as a user, to "unblock" the
current process by sending it a signal, e.g.,
SIGINT by pressing control-C at the terminal).
In your case, you want signal handling to be transparent
to the rest of the code, so you would set the SA_RESTART flag
when invoking sigaction(2). This means the kernel should
restart the interrupted system call automatically.
ooga is correct that you keep reloading the alarm so that it will never go off. This works. I just put a sleep in here so you don't keep stepping on yourself in the loop but you might want to substitute something more useful depending on where you are headed with this.
void display_message(int s)
{
printf("copyit: Still working...\n" );
// alarm(1); //for every second
// signal(SIGALRM, display_message);
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int ret;
while(1)
{
signal(SIGALRM, display_message);
alarm(1);
if ((ret = sleep(3)) != 0)
{
printf("sleep was interrupted by SIGALRM\n");
}
}
return (0);
}
The example code of section 10.6, the expected result is:
after several iterations, the static structure used by getpwnam will be corrupted, and the program will terminate with SIGSEGV signal.
But on my platform, Fedora 11, gcc (GCC) 4.4.0, the result is
[Langzi#Freedom apue]$ ./corrupt
in sig_alarm
I can see the output from sig_alarm only once, and the program seems hung up for some reason, but it does exist, and still running.
But when I try to use gdb to run the program, it seems OK, I will see the output from sig_alarm at regular intervals.
And from my manual, it said the signal handler will be set to SIG_DEF after the signal is handled, and system will not block the signal. So at the beginning of my signal handler I reset the signal handler.
Maybe I should use sigaction instead, but I only want to know the reason about the difference between normal running and gdb running.
Any advice and help will be appreciated.
following is my code:
#include "apue.h"
#include <pwd.h>
void sig_alarm(int signo);
int main()
{
struct passwd *pwdptr;
signal(SIGALRM, sig_alarm);
alarm(1);
for(;;) {
if ((pwdptr = getpwnam("Zhijin")) == NULL)
err_sys("getpwnam error");
if (strcmp("Zhijin", pwdptr->pw_name) != 0) {
printf("data corrupted, pw_name: %s\n", pwdptr->pw_name);
}
}
}
void sig_alarm(int signo)
{
signal(SIGALRM, sig_alarm);
struct passwd *rootptr;
printf("in sig_alarm\n");
if ((rootptr = getpwnam("root")) == NULL)
err_sys("getpwnam error");
alarm(1);
}
According to the standard, you're really not allowed to do much in a signal handler. All you are guaranteed to be able to do in the signal-handling function, without causing undefined behavior, is to call signal, and to assign a value to a volatile static object of the type sig_atomic_t.
The first few times I ran this program, on Ubuntu Linux, it looked like your call to alarm in the signal handler didn't work, so the loop in main just kept running after the first alarm. When I tried it later, the program ran the signal handler a few times, and then hung. All this is consistent with undefined behavior: the program fails, sometimes, and in various more or less interesting ways.
It is not uncommon for programs that have undefined behavior to work differently in the debugger. The debugger is a different environment, and your program and data could for example be laid out in memory in a different way, so errors can manifest themselves in a different way, or not at all.
I got the program to work by adding a variable:
volatile sig_atomic_t got_interrupt = 0;
And then I changed your signal handler to this very simple one:
void sig_alarm(int signo) {
got_interrupt = 1;
}
And then I inserted the actual work into the infinite loop in main:
if (got_interrupt) {
got_interrupt = 0;
signal(SIGALRM, sig_alarm);
struct passwd *rootptr;
printf("in sig_alarm\n");
if ((rootptr = getpwnam("root")) == NULL)
perror("getpwnam error");
alarm(1);
}
I think the "apue" you mention is the book "Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment", which I don't have here, so I don't know if the purpose of this example is to show that you shouldn't mess around with things inside of a signal handler, or just that signals can cause problems by interrupting the normal work of the program.
According to the spec, the function getpwnam is not reentrant and is not guaranteed to be thread safe. Since you are accessing the structure in two different threads of control (signal handlers are effectively running in a different thread context), you are running into this issue. Whenever you have concurrent or parallel execution (as when using pthreads or when using a signal handler), you must be sure not to modify shared state (e.g. the structure owned by 'getpwnam'), and if you do, then appropriate locking/synchronization must be used.
Additionally, the signal function has been deprecated in favor of the sigaction function. In order to ensure portable behavior when registering signal handlers, you should always use the sigaction invocation.
Using the sigaction function, you can use the SA_RESETHAND flag to reset the default handler. You can also use the sigprocmask function to enable/disable the delivery of signals without modifying their handlers.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <unistd.h>
void sigalrm_handler(int);
int main()
{
signal(SIGALRM, sigalrm_handler);
alarm(3);
while(1)
{
}
return 0;
}
void sigalrm_handler(int sign)
{
printf("I am alive. Catch the sigalrm %d!\n",sign);
alarm(3);
}
For example, my code is runing in main doing nothing and every 3 seconds my program says im alive x)
I think that if you do as i done calling in the handler function alarm with value 3, the problem is resolved :)