Provided by: libnet-daemon-perl_0.48-1_all bug

NAME

       Net::Daemon - Perl extension for portable daemons

SYNOPSIS

         # Create a subclass of Net::Daemon
         require Net::Daemon;
         package MyDaemon;
         @MyDaemon::ISA = qw(Net::Daemon);

         sub Run ($) {
           # This function does the real work; it is invoked whenever a
           # new connection is made.
         }

DESCRIPTION

       Net::Daemon is an abstract base class for implementing portable server applications in a
       very simple way. The module is designed for Perl 5.005 and threads, but can work with
       fork() and Perl 5.004.

       The Net::Daemon class offers methods for the most common tasks a daemon needs: Starting
       up, logging, accepting clients, authorization, restricting its own environment for
       security and doing the true work. You only have to override those methods that aren't
       appropriate for you, but typically inheriting will safe you a lot of work anyways.

   Constructors
         $server = Net::Daemon->new($attr, $options);

         $connection = $server->Clone($socket);

       Two constructors are available: The new method is called upon startup and creates an
       object that will basically act as an anchor over the complete program. It supports command
       line parsing via "Getopt::Long (3)".

       Arguments of new are $attr, an hash ref of attributes (see below) and $options an array
       ref of options, typically command line arguments (for example \@ARGV) that will be passed
       to Getopt::Long::GetOptions.

       The second constructor is Clone: It is called whenever a client connects. It receives the
       main server object as input and returns a new object. This new object will be passed to
       the methods that finally do the true work of communicating with the client. Communication
       occurs over the socket $socket, Clone's argument.

       Possible object attributes and the corresponding command line arguments are:

       catchint (--nocatchint)
           On some systems, in particular Solaris, the functions accept(), read() and so on are
           not safe against interrupts by signals. For example, if the user raises a USR1 signal
           (as typically used to reread config files), then the function returns an error EINTR.
           If the catchint option is on (by default it is, use --nocatchint to turn this off),
           then the package will ignore EINTR errors whereever possible.

       chroot (--chroot=dir)
           (UNIX only)  After doing a bind(), change root directory to the given directory by
           doing a chroot(). This is usefull for security operations, but it restricts
           programming a lot. For example, you typically have to load external Perl extensions
           before doing a chroot(), or you need to create hard links to Unix sockets. This is
           typically done in the config file, see the --configfile option. See also the --group
           and --user options.

           If you don't know chroot(), think of an FTP server where you can see a certain
           directory tree only after logging in.

       clients
           An array ref with a list of clients. Clients are hash refs, the attributes accept (0
           for denying access and 1 for permitting) and mask, a Perl regular expression for the
           clients IP number or its host name. See "Access control" below.

       configfile (--configfile=file)
           Net::Daemon supports the use of config files. These files are assumed to contain a
           single hash ref that overrides the arguments of the new method. However, command line
           arguments in turn take precedence over the config file. See the "Config File" section
           below for details on the config file.

       debug (--debug)
           Turn debugging mode on. Mainly this asserts that logging messages of level "debug" are
           created.

       facility (--facility=mode)
           (UNIX only) Facility to use for "Sys::Syslog (3)". The default is daemon.

       group (--group=gid)
           After doing a bind(), change the real and effective GID to the given.  This is
           usefull, if you want your server to bind to a privileged port (<1024), but don't want
           the server to execute as root. See also the --user option.

           GID's can be passed as group names or numeric values.

       localaddr (--localaddr=ip)
           By default a daemon is listening to any IP number that a machine has. This attribute
           allows to restrict the server to the given IP number.

       localpath (--localpath=path)
           If you want to restrict your server to local services only, you'll prefer using Unix
           sockets, if available. In that case you can use this option for setting the path of
           the Unix socket being created.  This option implies --proto=unix.

       localport (--localport=port)
           This attribute sets the port on which the daemon is listening. It must be given
           somehow, as there's no default.

       logfile (--logfile=file)
           By default logging messages will be written to the syslog (Unix) or to the event log
           (Windows NT). On other operating systems you need to specify a log file. The special
           value "STDERR" forces logging to stderr.

       loop-child (--loop-child)
           This option forces creation of a new child for loops. (See the loop-timeout option.)
           By default the loops are serialized.

       loop-timeout (--loop-timeout=secs)
           Some servers need to take an action from time to time. For example the
           Net::Daemon::Spooler attempts to empty its spooling queue every 5 minutes. If this
           option is set to a positive value (zero being the default), then the server will call
           its Loop method every "loop-timeout" seconds.

           Don't trust too much on the precision of the interval: It depends on a number of
           factors, in particular the execution time of the Loop() method. The loop is
           implemented by using the select function. If you need an exact interval, you should
           better try to use the alarm() function and a signal handler. (And don't forget to look
           at the catchint option!)

           It is recommended to use the loop-child option in conjunction with loop-timeout.

       mode (--mode=modename)
           The Net::Daemon server can run in three different modes, depending on the environment.

           If you are running Perl 5.005 and did compile it for threads, then the server will
           create a new thread for each connection. The thread will execute the server's Run()
           method and then terminate. This mode is the default, you can force it with
           "--mode=ithreads" or "--mode=threads".

           If threads are not available, but you have a working fork(), then the server will
           behave similar by creating a new process for each connection.  This mode will be used
           automatically in the absence of threads or if you use the "--mode=fork" option.

           Finally there's a single-connection mode: If the server has accepted a connection, he
           will enter the Run() method. No other connections are accepted until the Run() method
           returns. This operation mode is useful if you have neither threads nor fork(), for
           example on the Macintosh.  For debugging purposes you can force this mode with
           "--mode=single".

           When running in mode single, you can still handle multiple clients at a time by
           preforking multiple child processes. The number of childs is configured with the
           option "--childs".

       childs
           Use this parameter to let Net::Daemon run in prefork mode, which means it forks the
           number of childs processes you give with this parameter, and all child handle
           connections concurrently. The difference to fork mode is, that the child processes
           continue to run after a connection has terminated and are able to accept a new
           connection.  This is useful for caching inside the childs process (e.g.
           DBI::ProxyServer connect_cached attribute)

       options
           Array ref of Command line options that have been passed to the server object via the
           new method.

       parent
           When creating an object with Clone the original object becomes the parent of the new
           object. Objects created with new usually don't have a parent, thus this attribute is
           not set.

       pidfile (--pidfile=file)
           (UNIX only) If this option is present, a PID file will be created at the given
           location.

       proto (--proto=proto)
           The transport layer to use, by default tcp or unix for a Unix socket. It is not yet
           possible to combine both.

       socket
           The socket that is connected to the client; passed as $client argument to the Clone
           method. If the server object was created with new, this attribute can be undef, as
           long as the Bind method isn't called.  Sockets are assumed to be IO::Socket objects.

       user (--user=uid)
           After doing a bind(), change the real and effective UID to the given.  This is
           usefull, if you want your server to bind to a privileged port (<1024), but don't want
           the server to execute as root. See also the --group and the --chroot options.

           UID's can be passed as group names or numeric values.

       version (--version)
           Supresses startup of the server; instead the version string will be printed and the
           program exits immediately.

       Note that most of these attributes (facility, mode, localaddr, localport, pidfile,
       version) are meaningfull only at startup. If you set them later, they will be simply
       ignored. As almost all attributes have appropriate defaults, you will typically use the
       localport attribute only.

   Command Line Parsing
         my $optionsAvailable = Net::Daemon->Options();

         print Net::Daemon->Version(), "\n";

         Net::Daemon->Usage();

       The Options method returns a hash ref of possible command line options.  The keys are
       option names, the values are again hash refs with the following keys:

       template
           An option template that can be passed to Getopt::Long::GetOptions.

       description
           A description of this option, as used in Usage

       The Usage method prints a list of all possible options and returns.  It uses the Version
       method for printing program name and version.

   Config File
       If the config file option is set in the command line options or in the in the "new" args,
       then the method

         $server->ReadConfigFile($file, $options, $args)

       is invoked. By default the config file is expected to contain Perl source that returns a
       hash ref of options. These options override the "new" args and will in turn be overwritten
       by the command line options, as present in the $options hash ref.

       A typical config file might look as follows, we use the DBI::ProxyServer as an example:

           # Load external modules; this is not required unless you use
           # the chroot() option.
           #require DBD::mysql;
           #require DBD::CSV;

           {
               # 'chroot' => '/var/dbiproxy',
               'facility' => 'daemon',
               'pidfile' => '/var/dbiproxy/dbiproxy.pid',
               'user' => 'nobody',
               'group' => 'nobody',
               'localport' => '1003',
               'mode' => 'fork'

               # Access control
               'clients' => [
                   # Accept the local
                   {
                       'mask' => '^192\.168\.1\.\d+$',
                       'accept' => 1
                   },
                   # Accept myhost.company.com
                   {
                       'mask' => '^myhost\.company\.com$',
                       'accept' => 1
                   }
                   # Deny everything else
                   {
                       'mask' => '.*',
                       'accept' => 0
                   }
               ]
           }

   Access control
       The Net::Daemon package supports a host based access control scheme. By default access is
       open for anyone. However, if you create an attribute $self->{'clients'}, typically in the
       config file, then access control is disabled by default. For any connection the client
       list is processed: The clients attribute is an array ref to a list of hash refs. Any of
       the hash refs may contain arbitrary attributes, including the following:

       mask    A Perl regular expression that has to match the clients IP number or its host
               name. The list is processed from the left to the right, whenever a 'mask'
               attribute matches, then the related hash ref is choosen as client and processing
               the client list stops.

       accept  This may be set to true or false (default when omitting the attribute), the former
               means accepting the client.

   Event logging
         $server->Log($level, $format, @args);
         $server->Debug($format, @args);
         $server->Error($format, @args);
         $server->Fatal($format, @args);

       The Log method is an interface to "Sys::Syslog (3)" or "Win32::EventLog (3)". It's
       arguments are $level, a syslog level like debug, notice or err, a format string in the
       style of printf and the format strings arguments.

       The Debug and Error methods are shorthands for calling Log with a level of debug and err,
       respectively. The Fatal method is like Error, except it additionally throws the given
       message as exception.

       See Net::Daemon::Log(3) for details.

   Flow of control
         $server->Bind();
         # The following inside Bind():
         if ($connection->Accept()) {
             $connection->Run();
         } else {
             $connection->Log('err', 'Connection refused');
         }

       The Bind method is called by the application when the server should start. Typically this
       can be done right after creating the server object $server. Bind usually never returns,
       except in case of errors.

       When a client connects, the server uses Clone to derive a connection object $connection
       from the server object. A new thread or process is created that uses the connection object
       to call your classes Accept method. This method is intended for host authorization and
       should return either FALSE (refuse the client) or TRUE (accept the client).

       If the client is accepted, the Run method is called which does the true work. The
       connection is closed when Run returns and the corresponding thread or process exits.

   Error Handling
       All methods are supposed to throw Perl exceptions in case of errors.

MULTITHREADING CONSIDERATIONS

       All methods are working with lexically scoped data and handle data only, the exception
       being the OpenLog method which is invoked before threading starts. Thus you are safe as
       long as you don't share handles between threads. I strongly recommend that your
       application behaves similar. (This doesn't apply to mode 'ithreads'.)

EXAMPLE

       As an example we'll write a simple calculator server. After connecting to this server you
       may type expressions, one per line. The server evaluates the expressions and prints the
       result. (Note this is an example, in real life we'd never implement such a security hole.
       :-)

       For the purpose of example we add a command line option --base that takes 'hex', 'oct' or
       'dec' as values: The servers output will use the given base.

         # -*- perl -*-
         #
         # Calculator server
         #
         require 5.004;
         use strict;

         require Net::Daemon;

         package Calculator;

         use vars qw($VERSION @ISA);
         $VERSION = '0.01';
         @ISA = qw(Net::Daemon); # to inherit from Net::Daemon

         sub Version ($) { 'Calculator Example Server, 0.01'; }

         # Add a command line option "--base"
         sub Options ($) {
             my($self) = @_;
             my($options) = $self->SUPER::Options();
             $options->{'base'} = { 'template' => 'base=s',
                                    'description' => '--base                  '
                                           . 'dec (default), hex or oct'
                                     };
             $options;
         }

         # Treat command line option in the constructor
         sub new ($$;$) {
             my($class, $attr, $args) = @_;
             my($self) = $class->SUPER::new($attr, $args);
             if ($self->{'parent'}) {
                 # Called via Clone()
                 $self->{'base'} = $self->{'parent'}->{'base'};
             } else {
                 # Initial call
                 if ($self->{'options'}  &&  $self->{'options'}->{'base'}) {
                     $self->{'base'} = $self->{'options'}->{'base'}
                 }
             }
             if (!$self->{'base'}) {
                 $self->{'base'} = 'dec';
             }
             $self;
         }

         sub Run ($) {
             my($self) = @_;
             my($line, $sock);
             $sock = $self->{'socket'};
             while (1) {
                 if (!defined($line = $sock->getline())) {
                     if ($sock->error()) {
                         $self->Error("Client connection error %s",
                                      $sock->error());
                     }
                     $sock->close();
                     return;
                 }
                 $line =~ s/\s+$//; # Remove CRLF
                 my($result) = eval $line;
                 my($rc);
                 if ($self->{'base'} eq 'hex') {
                     $rc = printf $sock ("%x\n", $result);
                 } elsif ($self->{'base'} eq 'oct') {
                     $rc = printf $sock ("%o\n", $result);
                 } else {
                     $rc = printf $sock ("%d\n", $result);
                 }
                 if (!$rc) {
                     $self->Error("Client connection error %s",
                                  $sock->error());
                     $sock->close();
                     return;
                 }
             }
         }

         package main;

         my $server = Calculator->new({'pidfile' => 'none',
                                       'localport' => 2000}, \@ARGV);
         $server->Bind();

KNOWN PROBLEMS

       Most, or even any, known problems are related to the Sys::Syslog module which is by
       default used for logging events under Unix. I'll quote some examples:

       Usage: Sys::Syslog::_PATH_LOG at ...
           This problem is treated in perl bug 20000712.003. A workaround is changing line 277 of
           Syslog.pm to

             my $syslog = &_PATH_LOG() || croak "_PATH_LOG not found in syslog.ph";

AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT

         Net::Daemon is Copyright (C) 1998, Jochen Wiedmann
                                            Am Eisteich 9
                                            72555 Metzingen
                                            Germany

                                            Phone: +49 7123 14887
                                            Email: joe@ispsoft.de

         All rights reserved.

         You may distribute this package under the terms of either the GNU
         General Public License or the Artistic License, as specified in the
         Perl README file.

SEE ALSO

       RPC::pServer(3), Netserver::Generic(3), Net::Daemon::Log(3), Net::Daemon::Test(3)