Re: Usability notes from using runit for the first time

From: Robin Bowes <robin.bowes_at_yo61.com>
Date: Sun, 09 Feb 2014 13:04:57 +0000

On Sat, 2014-02-08 at 22:32 -0800, Kevin Burke wrote:
> Hello,
> Recently I set up a daemon to monitor server load, that's monitored by
> runit. I ran into a few problems that ended up taking the better part of a
> day to debug, so I wanted to note them here.
>
> *Despite starting a single Python process via runit, after about 20 minutes
> several Python processes would be running on the host.* The problem, it
> turns out, was that I wasn't using exec() to replace the `run` script with
> my Python process. It may be worth noting this in the FAQ; something like
> "I started my service with runit, but it looks like several instances are
> running" and tell people to ensure they started their service with exec. It
> may also be worth telling people that if monitored via top() or similar,
> your running program must appear as a child of runsvdir for runsv to
> effectively monitor it.

This is already covered in the FAQ:

http://smarden.org/runit/faq.html#create


> *Second, changes to my `run` script weren't being picked up by runs v. *I
> havne't double checked this, but I believe running "sv down <service>; sv
> up <service>" was not enough for runit to pick up changes in my program's
> `run` file. Only after I removed the /service/myservice directory were the
> changes picked up. Again, I haven't double checked this but if this is
> actually the program's behavior then it may be worth noting this in a FAQ.

I am not 100% sure of this but I think the correct way to pickup changes
in the run script is to exit the service and start it again, ie. do
this:

sv exit your_service
sv start your_service

> *Third, does runsv log anywhere*, or can it be run in a debug mode? When I
> saw multiple processes popping up in the process list, my intuition was to
> try and enable debug logs to figure out what was doing on.

For runsvdir logging:

http://smarden.org/runit/runsvdir.8.html

To create a service with an appendant log service:

http://smarden.org/runit/faq.html#createlog

> Finally, I would like to restart the process if it is using too much
> memory. Reading the `chpst` man page reveals this:
>
> *-m bytes:* limit memory. Limit the data segment, stack segment, locked
> physical pages, and total of all segment per process to bytes bytes each.
>
> What is the actual behavior if the process tries to use more memory than it
> is allowed? Will it (can it) just restart the process?

I believe what happens is that chpst enforces the memory limit and the
limited program will simply die if it tries to allocate more memory than
it is allowed. runsv will then restart the program.

R.

> Thanks for your help! runsv/chpst are awesome tools and I'm glad they are
> so good.
>
> Kevin
>
> --
> Kevin Burke | Twilio
> phone: 925.271.7005 | kev.inburke.com
Received on Sun Feb 09 2014 - 13:04:57 UTC

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