Using named pipes with bash - Problem with data loss

Question

Did some search online, found simple 'tutorials' to use named pipes. However when I do anything with background jobs I seem to lose a lot of data.

[[Edit: found a much simpler solution, see reply to post. So the question I put forward is now academic - in case one might want a job server]]

Using Ubuntu 10.04 with Linux 2.6.32-25-generic #45-Ubuntu SMP Sat Oct 16 19:52:42 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

GNU bash, version 4.1.5(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu).

My bash function is:

function jqs
{
  pipe=/tmp/__job_control_manager__
  trap "rm -f $pipe; exit"  EXIT SIGKILL

  if [[ ! -p "$pipe" ]]; then
      mkfifo "$pipe"
  fi

  while true
  do
    if read txt <"$pipe"
    then
      echo "$(date +'%Y'): new text is [[$txt]]"

      if [[ "$txt" == 'quit' ]]
      then
    break
      fi
    fi
  done
}

I run this in the background:

> jqs&
[1] 5336

And now I feed it:

for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
do
  (echo aaa$i > /tmp/__job_control_manager__ && echo success$i &)
done

The output is inconsistent. I frequently don't get all success echoes. I get at most as many new text echos as success echoes, sometimes less.

If I remove the '&' from the 'feed', it seems to work, but I am blocked until the output is read. Hence me wanting to let sub-processes get blocked, but not the main process.

The aim being to write a simple job control script so I can run say 10 jobs in parallel at most and queue the rest for later processing, but reliably know that they do run.

Full job manager below:

function jq_manage
{
  export __gn__="$1"

  pipe=/tmp/__job_control_manager_"$__gn__"__
  trap "rm -f $pipe"    EXIT
  trap "break"      SIGKILL

  if [[ ! -p "$pipe" ]]; then
      mkfifo "$pipe"
  fi

  while true
  do
    date
    jobs
    if (($(jobs | egrep "Running.*echo '%#_Group_#%_$__gn__'" | wc -l) < $__jN__))
    then
      echo "Waiting for new job"
      if read new_job <"$pipe"
      then
    echo "new job is [[$new_job]]"

    if [[ "$new_job" == 'quit' ]]
    then
      break
    fi

    echo "In group $__gn__, starting job $new_job"
    eval "(echo '%#_Group_#%_$__gn__' > /dev/null; $new_job) &"
      fi
    else
      sleep 3
    fi
  done
}

function jq
{
  # __gn__ = first parameter to this function, the job group name (the pool within which to allocate __jN__ jobs)
  # __jN__ = second parameter to this function, the maximum of job numbers to run concurrently

  export __gn__="$1"
  shift
  export __jN__="$1"
  shift

  export __jq__=$(jobs | egrep "Running.*echo '%#_GroupQueue_#%_$__gn__'" | wc -l)
  if (($__jq__ '<' 1))
  then
    eval "(echo '%#_GroupQueue_#%_$__gn__' > /dev/null; jq_manage $__gn__) &"
  fi

  pipe=/tmp/__job_control_manager_"$__gn__"__

  echo $@ >$pipe
}

Calling

jq <name> <max processes> <command>
jq abc 2 sleep 20

will start one process. That part works fine. Start a second one, fine. One by one by hand seem to work fine. But starting 10 in a loop seems to lose the system, as in the simpler example above.

Any hints as to what I can do to solve this apparent loss of IPC data would be greatly appreciated.

Regards, Alain.

Answer 1

Your problem is if statement below:

while true
do
    if read txt <"$pipe"
    ....
done

What is happening is that your job queue server is opening and closing the pipe each time around the loop. This means that some of the clients are getting a "broken pipe" error when they try to write to the pipe - that is, the reader of the pipe goes away after the writer opens it.

To fix this, change your loop in the server open the pipe once for the entire loop:

while true
do
    if read txt
    ....
done < "$pipe"

Done this way, the pipe is opened once and kept open.

You will need to be careful of what you run inside the loop, as all processing inside the loop will have stdin attached to the named pipe. You will want to make sure you redirect stdin of all your processes inside the loop from somewhere else, otherwise they may consume the data from the pipe.

Edit: With the problem now being that you are getting EOF on your reads when the last client closes the pipe, you can use jilles method of duping the file descriptors, or you can just make sure you are a client too and keep the write side of the pipe open:

while true
do
    if read txt
    ....
done < "$pipe" 3> "$pipe"

This will hold the write side of the pipe open on fd 3. The same caveat applies with this file descriptor as with stdin. You will need to close it so any child processes dont inherit it. It probably matters less than with stdin, but it would be cleaner.

Answer 2

As said in other answers you need to keep the fifo open at all times to avoid losing data.

However, once all writers have left after the fifo has been open (so there was a writer), reads return immediately (and poll() returns POLLHUP). The only way to clear this state is to reopen the fifo.

POSIX does not provide a solution to this but at least Linux and FreeBSD do: if reads start failing, open the fifo again while keeping the original descriptor open. This works because in Linux and FreeBSD the "hangup" state is local to a particular open file description, while in POSIX it is global to the fifo.

This can be done in a shell script like this:

while :; do
    exec 3<tmp/testfifo
    exec 4<&-
    while read x; do
        echo "input: $x"
    done <&3
    exec 4<&3
    exec 3<&-
done

Answer 3

Just for those that might be interested, [[re-edited]] following comments by camh and jilles, here are two new versions of the test server script.

Both versions now works exactly as hoped.

camh's version for pipe management:

function jqs    # Job queue manager
{
  pipe=/tmp/__job_control_manager__
  trap "rm -f $pipe; exit"  EXIT TERM

  if [[ ! -p "$pipe" ]]; then
      mkfifo "$pipe"
  fi

  while true
  do
    if read -u 3 txt
    then
      echo "$(date +'%Y'): new text is [[$txt]]"

      if [[ "$txt" == 'quit' ]]
      then
    break
      else
        sleep 1
        # process $txt - remember that if this is to be a spawned job, we should close fd 3 and 4 beforehand
      fi
    fi
  done 3< "$pipe" 4> "$pipe"    # 4 is just to keep the pipe opened so any real client does not end up causing read to return EOF
}

jille's version for pipe management:

function jqs    # Job queue manager
{
  pipe=/tmp/__job_control_manager__
  trap "rm -f $pipe; exit"  EXIT TERM

  if [[ ! -p "$pipe" ]]; then
      mkfifo "$pipe"
  fi

  exec 3< "$pipe"
  exec 4<&-

  while true
  do
    if read -u 3 txt
    then
      echo "$(date +'%Y'): new text is [[$txt]]"

      if [[ "$txt" == 'quit' ]]
      then
    break
      else
        sleep 1
        # process $txt - remember that if this is to be a spawned job, we should close fd 3 and 4 beforehand
      fi
    else
      # Close the pipe and reconnect it so that the next read does not end up returning EOF
      exec 4<&3
      exec 3<&-
      exec 3< "$pipe"
      exec 4<&-
    fi
  done
}

Thanks to all for your help.