Curiously, I have been using Apache::Reload a lot lately and it has been working really well most of the time.
I'm wondering if maybe another way to deal with troublesome module reloads is to subclass Apache::Reload and override the reload process for those specific namespaces. On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 8:11 AM, Michael Schout <msch...@gkg.net> wrote: > On 09/11/2009 04:26 PM, Jonathan Swartz wrote: >> I'm thinking about an improved solution to recognizing module changes in >> a running server, without restarting the server. > > This thread is quite old, but it inspired me to implement a similar > strategy for dealing with module changes under mod_perl. > > In my case, I was only really interested in restarting the server when > modules under a certain namespace changed (all of my app's modules are > under a single namespace, "My" for example). > > My solution involved forking off a watcher process when the server > starts up. This watcher processes uses File::ChangeNotify to watch for > changes in the given modules. A nice benefit of using ::ChangeNotify, > is if you are on Linux, and have the Linux::Inotify2 modules installed, > then this happens with no cpu overhead, and changes are seen almost > instantaneous. Once a change happens, my watcher processes detaches > from apache, and reloads it (retrying some configured number of times in > case there is a syntax error on the first change). > > To do this, I created a module My::Apache2::Reload. I register the > handler in httpd.conf as: > > PerlPostConfigHandler My::Apache2::Reload > > When apache starts up, it immediately restarts itself, so my handler has > to arrange to only start the watcher subprocess one time. I do this on > the second restart like this: > >> sub handler : method { >> return Apache2::Const::OK unless Apache2::ServerUtil::restart_count() == >> 2; >> >> start_watcher(); >> >> return Apache2::Const::OK; >> } > > start_watcher is implemented as follows: > >> sub start_watcher { >> unless (fork) { # child >> require File::ChangeNotify; >> >> my $module_dir = '/path/to/my/modules'; >> my $config_dir = '/path/to/my/configs'; >> >> my $watcher = File::ChangeNotify->instantiate_watcher( >> directories => [$module_dir, $config_dir], >> filter => qr/\.(?:pm|conf|yml)$/); >> >> while (my @events = $watcher->wait_for_events) { >> my @event_types = map { $_->type } @events; >> if (any(@event_types) eq 'modify') { >> restart_apache(); >> } >> } >> } >> } > > And restart_apache() is called when something that is watched changes: > >> sub restart_apache { >> disconnect_from_apache(); >> >> require IPC::System::Simple; >> >> for my $attempt (1 .. $MaxRestartTries) { >> if ($attempt > 1) { >> sleep $RestartDelay; >> } >> >> eval { >> IPC::System::Simple::system('apache restart command'); >> CORE::exit(0); >> }; >> } >> >> # give up. >> CORE::exit(0); >> } > > The disconnect_from_apache() is necessary because the watcher gets > killed off if you do not close all open filehandles in the child when > the restart is attempted. Also we need to detach from the apache > process group. This is done as follows: > >> sub disconnect_from_apache { >> POSIX::setsid(); >> >> # close all open fds. >> my $max_fds = POSIX::sysconf(&POSIX::_SC_OPEN_MAX) // 64; >> >> for my $fd (0 .. $max_fds) { >> POSIX::close($fd); >> } >> } > > > And thats it. This has worked wonderfully for me. Apache notices > changes in real time, and restarts happen quickly when developing. > > If there is interest in a module like this, let me know and I will > package it up and put it on CPAN (obviously I wouldn't use the name > Apache2::Reload as that is taken already :)). > > Regards, > Michael Schout >