@tmm1

computer talk by a systems hacker and ruby-core developer

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Ruby 2.1: Process.setproctitle()

Custom proclines are a great way to add visibility into your code’s execution. The various BSDs have long shipped a setproctitle(3) syscall for this purpose. At GitHub, we use this technique extensively in our unicorns, resques and even our git processes:

$ ps ax | grep git:
32326  git:  upload-pack  AOKP/kernel_samsung_smdk4412  [173.x.x.x over git]  clone: create_pack_file: 75.27 MiB @ 102.00 KiB/s
32327  git: pack-objects  AOKP/kernel_samsung_smdk4412  [173.x.x.x over git]  writing: 9% (203294/2087544)
 2671  git:  upload-pack  CyanogenMod/android_libcore   [87.x.x.x over git]  clone: create_pack_file: 31.26 MiB @ 31.00 KiB/s
 2672  git: pack-objects  CyanogenMod/android_libcore   [87.x.x.x over git]  writing: 93% (90049/96410)

$ ps ax | grep unicorn
2408  unicorn github.com[9013677] worker[01]:  1843 reqs,  2.9 req/s,   23ms avg,   6.9% util
2529  unicorn github.com[9013677] worker[02]:  1715 reqs,  2.9 req/s,   21ms avg,   6.2% util
2640  unicorn github.com[9013677] worker[03]:  1632 reqs,  3.2 req/s,   19ms avg,   6.2% util

$ pstree -s resqued
─┬─ 25012 resqued-0.7.9 master [gen 413] [1 running] config/resqued.rb
 └─┬─ 21924 resqued-0.7.9 listener 413 [f48cb15] [running] config/resqued.rb
   ├─── 22329 resque-1.20.0: [f48cb15] Waiting for low,notifications,services
   ├─── 22295 resque-1.20.0: [f48cb15] Processing notifications since 1389929817: GitHub::Jobs::DeliverNotifications

Linux never gained a specialized syscall, but still supports custom /proc/pid/cmdline via one weird trick. The hack relies on the fact that execve(2) allocates a contiguous piece of memory to pass argv and envp into a new process. When the null byte separating the two values is overwritten, the kernel assumes you’ve customized your cmdline and continues to read into the envp buffer. This means your procline can grow to contain more information as long as there’s space in the envp buffer. (Environment variables are copied out of the original envp buffer, so overwriting this area of memory only affects /proc/pid/environ).

Starting with Ruby 2.1 Process.setproctitle is available as a complementary method to $0=, and can be used to customize proclines without affecting $0.