NAME

       condor_procd - HTCondor Manual

       Track and manage process families

SYNOPSIS

       condor_procd -h

       condor_procd -A address-file [options ]

DESCRIPTION

       condor_procd tracks and manages process families on behalf of the HTCondor daemons. It may
       track families of  PIDs  via  relationships  such  as:  direct  parent/child,  environment
       variables, UID, and supplementary group IDs. Management of the PID families include

       • registering new families or new members of existing families

       • getting usage information

       • signaling families for operations such as suspension, continuing, or killing the family

       • getting a snapshot of the tree of families

       In a regular HTCondor installation, this program is not intended to be used or executed by
       any human.

       The required argument, -A address-file, is the path and file  name  of  the  address  file
       which is the named pipe that clients must use to speak with the condor_procd.

OPTIONS

          -h     Print out usage information and exit.

          -D     Wait  for  the  debugger.  Initially  sleep  30  seconds before beginning normal
                 function.

          -C principal
                 The principal is the UID of the owner of the named pipe that clients must use to
                 speak to the condor_procd.

          -L log-file
                 A file the condor_procd will use to write logging information.

          -E     When  specified,  another  tool such as the procd_ctl tool must allocate the GID
                 associated with a process. When this option is not specified,  the  condor_procd
                 will allocate the GID itself.

          -P PID If  not  specified,  the condor_procd will use the condor_procd 's parent, which
                 may not be PID 1 on Unix, as the parent of the condor_procd and the root of  the
                 tracking  family.   When  not specified, if the condor_procd 's parent PID dies,
                 the condor_procd exits. When specified, the condor_procd  will  track  this  PID
                 family in question and not also exit if the PID exits.

          -S seconds
                 The  maximum  number  of  seconds  the  condor_procd  will  wait  between taking
                 snapshots of the tree of families. Different clients  to  the  condor_procd  can
                 specify  different  snapshot  times.  The  quickest  snapshot  time  is  the one
                 performed by the condor_procd. When this option  is  not  specified,  a  default
                 value of 60 seconds is used.

          -G min-gid max-gid
                 If  the  -E  option  is  not  specified,  then  track  process  families using a
                 self-allocated, free GID out of the inclusive range  specified  by  min-gid  and
                 max-gid. This means that if a new process shows up using a previously known GID,
                 the new process will automatically associate into the  process  family  assigned
                 that  GID.   If  the -E option is specified, then instead of self-allocating the
                 GID, the procd_ctl tool must be used to associate the GID with the PID  root  of
                 the  family.  The associated GID must still be in the range specified. This is a
                 Linux-only feature.

          -K windows-softkill-binary
                 This is the path and executable name of the condor_softkill.exe  binary.  It  is
                 used  to  send  softkill  signals  to  process families.  This is a Windows-only
                 feature.

DEALING WITH SHORT READS

       For unknown reasons, on Linux, attemps to read the list of PIDs from the /proc  filesystem
       do  not  always return all of the PIDs on the system.  The condor_procd attempts to detect
       when this occurs, using two methods.

       If the list of PIDs does not include PID 1, the condor_procd's own PID, or the PID of  the
       condor_procd's  parent  (which  may  be  PID 1), then the list must be incomplete, and the
       condor_procd immediately retries the read.

       Additionally, the condor_procd compares the number of PIDs it just read to the  number  of
       PIDs  from the last time it (successfully) checked.  If the number is too much smaller, it
       immediately retries.  The default threshold is 0.90, meaning that if the current read  has
       90%  or  fewer  of  the  last  read's PIDs, it's considered invalid.  In our testing, this
       threshold was met by roughly 1 in 4000 reads, but successfully  detected  all  real  short
       reads.   If  you  need  to  adjust the threshold, you may do so by setting the environment
       variable _CONDOR_PROCAPI_RETRY_FRACTION.  (In the normal  case,  simply  have  it  in  the
       environment when the condor_master starts up.)

       If a retried read is incomplete (according to either method), the condor_procd returns the
       results of the previous read.

GENERAL REMARKS

       This program may be used in a stand alone mode, independent of HTCondor, to track  process
       families.  The  programs  procd_ctl and gidd_alloc are used with the condor_procd in stand
       alone mode to interact with the daemon and to  inquire  about  certain  state  of  running
       processes on the machine, respectively.

EXIT STATUS

       condor_procd will exit with a status value of 0 (zero) upon success, and it will exit with
       the value 1 (one) upon failure.

AUTHOR

       HTCondor Team

COPYRIGHT

       1990-2024, Center for High Throughput Computing, Computer Sciences Department,  University
       of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, US. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

                                           Apr 14, 2024                           CONDOR_PROCD(1)