You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to dev@httpd.apache.org by Tom Jones <to...@inpher.com> on 2013/05/07 00:42:27 UTC
disable pid file writing?
We use process supervision and don't have a use for pid files. We
are running multiple httpd instances, and have the config management
to create a writable configured place for each instance to put its
pid file.
This config management has some ongoing cost to maintain, and we would
find it nicer if we could just disable pid files in our apache httpd
configurations.
Before going further, I just wanted to get a feel for what others think
of the idea of geing able to disable pid files. If added, should it be
done with a special value given to the PidFile directive (such as the
empty string), or should a new directive be introduced such as
DisablePidFile?
best wishes, Tom.
Re: disable pid file writing?
Posted by Tim Bannister <is...@jellybaby.net>.
On 10 May 2013, William A. Rowe, Jr. wrote:
> On Wed, 08 May 2013 19:08:56 -0500 Daniel Ruggeri <DR...@primary.net> wrote:
>
>> On 5/8/2013 3:29 PM, Rainer Jung wrote:
>>> Careful: I didn't test it but we delete the pid file during web server shutdown. That might remove /dev/null then.
>>>
>>> On a quick look through the code I had the impression you can not easily get rid of the pid file.
>> Agreed - setting to /dev/null under the current code also fails
>> startup anyway with the following error:
>> (20014)Internal error: Error retrieving pid file /dev/null
>> Remove it before continuing if it is corrupted.
>>
>> I haven't looked into it any further than that, though.
>
> Yes, to both concerns, it definately needs special treatment with a strcmp() (as I had hinted in my original note). But there isn't a sane reason to honor /dev/null, whereas there's no reason you couldn't name a pidfile 'none' in the serverroot directory. That's why I thought it would make a good no-pid sentinel value.
How about "" as a non-sane name? /dev might be /Devices on some arcane Unix-like system but "" isn't a valid filename anywhere I've ever seen.
--
Tim Bannister – isoma@jellybaby.net
Re: disable pid file writing?
Posted by "William A. Rowe Jr." <wr...@rowe-clan.net>.
On Wed, 08 May 2013 19:08:56 -0500
Daniel Ruggeri <DR...@primary.net> wrote:
> On 5/8/2013 3:29 PM, Rainer Jung wrote:
> > Careful: I didn't test it but we delete the pid file during web
> > server shutdown. That might remove /dev/null then.
> >
> > On a quick look through the code I had the impression you can not
> > easily get rid of the pid file.
> Agreed - setting to /dev/null under the current code also fails
> startup anyway with the following error:
> (20014)Internal error: Error retrieving pid file /dev/null
> Remove it before continuing if it is corrupted.
>
> I haven't looked into it any further than that, though.
Yes, to both concerns, it definately needs special treatment with
a strcmp() (as I had hinted in my original note). But there isn't
a sane reason to honor /dev/null, whereas there's no reason you
couldn't name a pidfile 'none' in the serverroot directory. That's
why I thought it would make a good no-pid sentinel value.
Re: disable pid file writing?
Posted by Daniel Ruggeri <DR...@primary.net>.
On 5/8/2013 3:29 PM, Rainer Jung wrote:
> Careful: I didn't test it but we delete the pid file during web server
> shutdown. That might remove /dev/null then.
>
> On a quick look through the code I had the impression you can not easily
> get rid of the pid file.
Agreed - setting to /dev/null under the current code also fails startup
anyway with the following error:
(20014)Internal error: Error retrieving pid file /dev/null
Remove it before continuing if it is corrupted.
I haven't looked into it any further than that, though.
--
Daniel Ruggeri
Re: disable pid file writing?
Posted by Rainer Jung <ra...@kippdata.de>.
On 08.05.2013 20:06, William A. Rowe Jr. wrote:
> On Mon, 6 May 2013 23:42:27 +0100
> Tom Jones <to...@inpher.com> wrote:
>
>> We use process supervision and don't have a use for pid files. We
>> are running multiple httpd instances, and have the config management
>> to create a writable configured place for each instance to put its
>> pid file.
>
> Surely you have the very same problem with the various fcntl/mutex and
> disk-backed shared mem segments, as well as log files? This seems
> fairly incidental to the big picture.
>
>> This config management has some ongoing cost to maintain, and we would
>> find it nicer if we could just disable pid files in our apache httpd
>> configurations.
>
> Of course apachectl requires this, but it's pretty clear you aren't
> using apachectl in the first place...
>
>> Before going further, I just wanted to get a feel for what others
>> think of the idea of geing able to disable pid files. If added,
>> should it be done with a special value given to the PidFile directive
>> (such as the empty string), or should a new directive be introduced
>> such as DisablePidFile?
>
> No, another directive simply confused the issue. Wouldn't "/dev/null"
> be the appropriate PidFile value, with special case handling of that
> specific string?
Careful: I didn't test it but we delete the pid file during web server
shutdown. That might remove /dev/null then.
On a quick look through the code I had the impression you can not easily
get rid of the pid file.
Regards,
Rainer
Re: disable pid file writing?
Posted by "William A. Rowe Jr." <wr...@rowe-clan.net>.
On Mon, 6 May 2013 23:42:27 +0100
Tom Jones <to...@inpher.com> wrote:
> We use process supervision and don't have a use for pid files. We
> are running multiple httpd instances, and have the config management
> to create a writable configured place for each instance to put its
> pid file.
Surely you have the very same problem with the various fcntl/mutex and
disk-backed shared mem segments, as well as log files? This seems
fairly incidental to the big picture.
> This config management has some ongoing cost to maintain, and we would
> find it nicer if we could just disable pid files in our apache httpd
> configurations.
Of course apachectl requires this, but it's pretty clear you aren't
using apachectl in the first place...
> Before going further, I just wanted to get a feel for what others
> think of the idea of geing able to disable pid files. If added,
> should it be done with a special value given to the PidFile directive
> (such as the empty string), or should a new directive be introduced
> such as DisablePidFile?
No, another directive simply confused the issue. Wouldn't "/dev/null"
be the appropriate PidFile value, with special case handling of that
specific string?