Checkpointing and restarting X11 applications - c

I want to checkpoint and restart X11 applications. I am using the BLCR (Berkeley Lab Checkpoint/Restart (BLCR)) tool.
BLCR is not able (without modifications) to reinitiate the connection to the X-Server. I used an interposition library to log all Xlib function calls with their parameters to a text file.
Now I want to be able to re-use this logged function call.
Is there a better way than to save them to a text file and parsing/interpreting them during the restart procedure?
The application which is checkpointed should redo the calls which were logged, but this seems to be not as easy as it has sounded first.

I've not tested this, but I think you might be able to solve this one by spawning an xmove child process and making sure this gets stored in the checkpoints. Your application would talk to xmove instead of the XServer directly and every time you restore from checkpoint you would "move" to the current xserver again.

Related

Is it possible to change process function code(behavior) in the running time?

I just want to my flink application as much as configurable. And also i want to change the behavior of the process function in the running time instead of stopping the cluster and re-deploy the jar file.
Is there any document for that? Or is it possible to inject process function code into running jar. For instance, from the web ui, i will get the process function input(as a java code) then after submitting the form, I will update the process function behavior.
You can use a BroadcastProcessFunction (or a KeyedBroadcastProcessFunction), and on the broadcast channel, communicate (in some fashion) what the process function is supposed to do.
I've seen this technique used to broadcast javascript code (to be executed by Rhino), commands in a DSL, references to a JAR file to load, etc.
It's old and not well documented, but https://github.com/alpinegizmo/flink-training-exercises/blob/master/src/main/java/com/ververica/flinktraining/solutions/datastream_java/broadcast/TaxiQuerySolution.java is an example of this approach that uses Janino to compile and execute dynamically supplied Java expressions.

FileSystemWatcher handling moving file - another solution

Hi
I was trying to use FileSystemWatcher to detect if some files or directories has been moved to another location. The problem was, i had to use onCreated and onDeleted events to handle this, but there are many issues using this solution
how could i detect change if i will select more than one file and press Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, or right-click and select Copy and then Paste in the same directory?
how could i detect, if i will select more than one directory?
the last one, what if i simulate moving file? I could delete file and create with same name in different place.
I know i could use, Timers, process locking detection, verification which process uses file (if explorer.exe then it could be moving file), but this solution is not perfect and it's very ineffective. I was whinking about this how to solve this issue, and i have decided to implement this in low-level language. Is this possible to do this using C, or assembler? I know that every thing is possible to do using assembler, so is it possible to implement this in asm? I would like to create my own FileSystemWatcher using assembler or C but where should i looking for info how to do this?
File movement within the same filesystem can be detected easily using a filesystem filter driver, as the filesystem received the corresponding request from the OS. Other scenarios such as moving to the other disk or moving by copy/delete sequence are hardly traceable even with the filter driver because you would need to match between the file which have been created/written to and the file which is being deleted (possibly on the other disk).
If you plan to write some security mechanism (like a DRM), then I need to remind that the data can be altered during copying (eg. encrypted or compressed), which makes your task even harder.
Still you can look at filesystem filter drivers - should you decide to go on with detection of filesystem events, such driver is a much more reliable and powerful mechanism than FileSystemWatcher.

Wait for file to be unlocked - Windows

I'm writing a TFTP server program for university, which needs exclusive access to the files it opens for reading. Thus it can be configured that if a file is locked by another process that it waits for the file to become unlocked.
Is there any way on Win32 to wait for a file become unlocked without creating a handle for it first?
The reason I ask, is that if another process calls CreateFile() with a dwShareMode that is incompatible to the one my process uses, I won't even be able to get a file handle to use for waiting on the lock using LockFileEx().
Thanks for your help in advance!
If you take a look at the Stack Overflow questions What Win32 API can be used to find the process that has a given file open? and SYSTEM_HANDLE_INFORMATION structure, you will find links to code that can be used to enumerate processes and all open handles of each running process. This information can be used to obtain a HANDLE to the process that has the file open as well as its HANDLE for the file. You would then use DuplicateHandle() to create a copy of the file HANDLE, but in the TFTP process' handle table. The duplicated HANDLE could then be used by the TFTP process with LockFileEx().
This solution relies on an internal function, NtQuerySystemInformation(), and an undocumented system information class value that can be used to enumerate open handles. Note that this feature of NtQuerySystemInformation() "may be altered or unavailable in future versions of Windows". You might want to use an SEH handler to guard against access violations were that to happen.
As tools from MS like OH and Process Explorer do it, it is definitely possible to get all the handles opened by a process. From there to wait on what you'd like the road is still long, but it is a beginning :)
If you have no success with the Win32 API, one place to look at is for sure the NT Native API http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_API
You can start from here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724509%28v=vs.85%29.aspx and see if it works with the SystemProcessInformation flag.
Look also here for a start http://nsylvain.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-list-all-open-handles.html
The native API is poorly documented, but you can find resources online (like here http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=91)
As a disclaimer, I should add that the Native API is somehow "internal", and therefore subject to change on future versions. Some functions, however, are exposed also publicly in the DDK, at kernel level, so the likelihood of these functions to change is low.
Good luck!

Use libfuse in a project, without root access (for installation)? FTP mounts & inotify/kqueue/FSEvents

I'd like my application to be able to show a directory listing from a remote FTP (or SFTP etc) location. When a file/directory changes in the remote directory tree, the application should update its view with the relevant changes.
Because traversing the entire tree is slow and wasteful, I'd like to use something along the lines of FSEvents (inotify/kqueues on Linux), but obviously these libraries are filesystem-based, and a connection to an FTP server is not the same as a mounted filesystem.
In order to make these libraries work, I'd need to actually mount a filesystem backed by FTP/SFTP on the local machine, then attach an FSEventStream (or kqueue etc) to this local mount. I know FUSE can do this, but is there any way I can use FUSE without the user having to first install it? I mean, can I bundle it with my (Mac) application and create mounts without having to put the user through the process of actually running an installer package to copy libfuse and the kernel modules into the system? Does it assume /dev/fuse exists, or can this live outside the /dev/ path, inside my application directory?
Nice Mac applications are installed with a simple drag & drop and I'd like to keep mine this way if possible. I'm unclear on if it's possible to use libfuse directly (provided the files are included with the app), without installing it in the system paths.
Alternatively, does anyone have any other suggestions for monitoring for changes over FTP, without polling?
Unfortunately FTP and SFTP do not support any form of client notification.
Much like HTTP they are based on a request/response scheme, where each data transfer is initiated by the client. What makes things worse is that, contrary to HTTP, there is no way to ask the server to inform the client of any changes since a specific date.
This means that not only you have to use polling, but also that said polling will by no means be lightweight.
As far as FUSE is related, most FTP and SFTP modules that are available only update their view of the filesystem when the userspace applications ask for a directory listing (e.g. hitting Refresh in a file browser window). They do not perform polling on their own. Your userspace application will have to initiate the refresh by polling the directory itself.
EDIT:
To clarify a couple of things, recent versions of FUSE do support notification events. They
simply pass through the events from the modules to the kernel. The modules still have to generate them and in the case of an FTP/SFTP client module that is impossible without polling the server.
Also keep in mind that many current NFS implementations do not support change notifications either, despite the fact that NFSv4.1 has the necessary provisions. Many SMB/CIFS servers (esp. those in cheap Network-Attached-Storage embedded systems) also have limited to no support.

Display processes that access a folder

I am trying to write a simple program, preferably in C, that will watch a given directory. Whenever a process accesses that directory, I just want to print out the name of that process. It seems simple, but I am coming up short for solutions on MSDN. Does anyone know which library calls I will need for this, or any helpful advice? I have considered repeatedly querying for what processes have handles on the given directory and just watching for additions to that list.This approach just seems very intensive and I am hoping there is an easier way. Thanks.
I'm not sure if there's an easier way, but one way is to use a file system filter driver. Or easier a file system minifilter driver.
You can filter, log, track, control, ... all IO.
There is no supported way to do this from user mode. You can use the FindFirstChangeNotification API to tell when a file or directory has changed, but that doesn't tell you who did it. You might be able to hook some things to obtain this information... but that is of course not supported.
If you can use a driver, you can use Event Tracing for Windows for this information. This is what Sysinternals ProcMon uses. But installation of a driver is a very invasive process, bugs in your driver cause BSODs, and installation of a driver requires administrative rights. Something to keep in mind.

Resources