$ opm get nodegin/lua-resty-exec

lua-resty-exec

A small Lua module for executing processes. It's primarily intended to be used with OpenResty, but will work in regular Lua applications as well. When used with OpenResty, it's completely non-blocking (otherwise it falls back to using LuaSocket and does block).

It's similar to (and inspired by) lua-resty-shell, the primary difference being this module uses sockexec, which doesn't spawn a shell - instead you provide an array of argument strings, which means you don't need to worry about shell escaping/quoting/parsing rules.

Additionally, as of version 2.0.0, you can use resty.exec.socket to access a lower-level interface that allows two-way communication with programs. You can read and write to running applications!

This requires your web server to have an active instance of sockexec running.

Changelog

• 3.0.0

  • new field returned: unknown - if this happens please send me a bug!

• 2.0.0

  • New resty.exec.socket module for using a duplex connection

  • resty.exec no longer uses the bufsize argument

  • resty.exec now accepts a timeout argument, specify in milliseconds, defaults to 60s

  • This is a major revision, please test thoroughly before upgrading!

• No changelog before 2.0.0

Installation

lua-resty-exec is available on luarocks as well as opm, you can install it with `luarocks install lua-resty-exec or opm get jprjr/lua-resty-exec`.

If you're using this outside of OpenResty, you'll also need the LuaSocket module installed, ie luarocks install luasocket.

Additionally, you'll need sockexec running, see its repo for instructions.

resty.exec Usage

    local exec = require'resty.exec'
    local prog = exec.new('/tmp/exec.sock')

Creates a new prog object, using /tmp/exec.sock for its connection to sockexec.

From there, you can use prog in a couple of different ways:

ez-mode

    local res, err = prog('uname')
    
    -- res = { stdout = "Linux\n", stderr = nil, exitcode = 0, termsig = nil }
    -- err = nil
    
    ngx.print(res.stdout)

This will run uname, with no data on stdin.

Returns a table of output/error codes, with err set to any errors encountered.

Setup argv beforehand

    prog.argv = { 'uname', '-a' }
    local res, err = prog()
    
    -- res = { stdout = "Linux localhost 3.10.18 #1 SMP Tue Aug 2 21:08:34 PDT 2016 x86_64 GNU/Linux\n", stderr = nil, exitcode = 0, termsig = nil }
    -- err = nil
    
    ngx.print(res.stdout)

Setup stdin beforehand

    prog.stdin = 'this is neat!'
    local res, err = prog('cat')
    
    -- res = { stdout = "this is neat!", stderr = nil, exitcode = 0, termsig = nil }
    -- err = nil
    
    ngx.print(res.stdout)

Call with explicit argv, stdin data, stdout/stderr callbacks

    local res, err = prog( {
        argv = 'cat',
        stdin = 'fun!',
        stdout = function(data) print(data) end,
        stderr = function(data) print("error:", data) end
    } )
    
    -- res = { stdout = nil, stderr = nil, exitcode = 0, termsig = nil }
    -- err = nil
    -- 'fun!' is printed

Note: here argv is a string, which is fine if your program doesn't need any arguments.

Setup stdout/stderr callbacks

If you set prog.stdout or prog.stderr to a function, it will be called for each chunk of stdout/stderr data received.

Please note that there's no guarantees of stdout/stderr being a complete string, or anything particularly sensible for that matter!

    prog.stdout = function(data)
        ngx.print(data)
        ngx.flush(true)
    end
    
    local res, err = prog('some-program')
    

Treat timeouts as non-errors

By default, sockexec treats a timeout as an error. You can disable this by setting the object's timeout_fatal key to false. Examples:

    -- set timeout_fatal = false on the prog objects
    prog.timeout_fatal = false
    
    -- or, set it at calltime:
    local res, err = prog({argv = {'cat'}, timeout_fatal = false})

But I actually want a shell!

Not a problem! You can just do something like:

    local res, err = prog('bash','-c','echo $PATH')

Or if you want to run an entire script:

    prog.stdin = script_data
    local res, err = prog('bash')
    
    -- this is roughly equivalent to running `bash < script` on the CLI

Daemonizing processes

I generally recommend against daemonizing processes - I think it's far better to use some kind of message queue and/or supervision system, so you can monitor processes, take actions on failure, and so on.

That said, if you want to spin off some process, you could use start-stop-daemon, ie:

    local res, err = prog('start-stop-daemon','--pidfile','/dev/null','--background','--exec','/usr/bin/sleep', '--start','--','10')

will spawn sleep 10 as a detached background process.

If you don't want to deal with start-stop-daemon, I have a small utility for spawning a background program called idgaf, ie:

    local res, err = prog('idgaf','sleep','10')

This will basically accomplish the same thing start-stop-daemon does without requiring a billion flags.

resty.exec.socket Usage

    local exec_socket = require'resty.exec.socket'
    
    -- you can specify timeout in milliseconds, optional
    local client = exec_socket:new({ timeout = 60000 })
    
    -- every new program instance requires a new
    -- call to connect
    local ok, err = client:connect('/tmp/exec.sock')
    
    -- send program arguments, only accepts a table of
    -- arguments
    client:send_args({'cat'})
    
    -- send data for stdin
    client:send('hello there')
    
    -- receive data
    local data, typ, err = client:receive()
    
    -- `typ` can be one of:
    --    `stdout`   - data from the program's stdout
    --    `stderr`   - data from the program's stderr
    --    `exitcode` - the program's exit code
    --    `termsig`  - if terminated via signal, what signal was used
    
    -- if `err` is set, data and typ will be nil
    -- common `err` values are `closed` and `timeout`
    print(string.format('Received %s data: %s',typ,data)
    -- will print 'Received stdout data: hello there'
    
    client:send('hey this cat process is still running')
    data, typ, err = client:receive()
    print(string.format('Received %s data: %s',typ,data)
    -- will print 'Received stdout data: hey this cat process is still running'
    
    client:send_close() -- closes stdin
    data, typ, err = client:receive()
    print(string.format('Received %s data: %s',typ,data)
    -- will print 'Received exitcode data: 0'
    
    data, typ, err = client:receive()
    print(err) -- will print 'closed'

client object methods:

• ok, err = client:connect(path)**

Connects via unix socket to the path given. If this is running in nginx, the unix: string will be prepended automatically.

• bytes, err = client:send_args(args)**

Sends a table of arguments to sockexec and starts the program.

• bytes, err = client:send_data(data)**

Sends data to the program's standard input

• bytes, err = client:send(data)**

Just a shortcut to client:send_data(data)

• bytes, err = client:send_close()**

Closes the program's standard input. You can also send an empty string, like client:send_data('')

• data, typ, err = client:receive()**

Receives data from the running process. typ indicates the type of data, which can be stdout, stderr, termsig, exitcode

err is typically either closed or timeout

• client:close()**

Forcefully closes the client connection

• client:getfd()**

A getfd method, useful if you want to monitor the underlying socket connection in a select loop

Some example nginx configs

Assuming you're running sockexec at /tmp/exec.sock

    $ sockexec /tmp/exec.sock

Then in your nginx config:

    location /uname-1 {
        content_by_lua_block {
            local prog = require'resty.exec'.new('/tmp/exec.sock')
            local data,err = prog('uname')
            if(err) then
                ngx.say(err)
            else
                ngx.say(data.stdout)
            end
        }
    }
    location /uname-2 {
        content_by_lua_block {
            local prog = require'resty.exec'.new('/tmp/exec.sock')
            prog.argv = { 'uname', '-a' }
            local data,err = prog()
            if(err) then
                ngx.say(err)
            else
                ngx.say(data.stdout)
            end
        }
    }
    location /cat-1 {
        content_by_lua_block {
            local prog = require'resty.exec'.new('/tmp/exec.sock')
            prog.stdin = 'this is neat!'
            local data,err = prog('cat')
            if(err) then
                ngx.say(err)
            else
                ngx.say(data.stdout)
            end
        }
    }
    location /cat-2 {
        content_by_lua_block {
            local prog = require'resty.exec'.new('/tmp/exec.sock')
            local data,err = prog({argv = 'cat', stdin = 'awesome'})
            if(err) then
                ngx.say(err)
            else
                ngx.say(data.stdout)
            end
        }
    }
    location /slow-print {
        content_by_lua_block {
            local prog = require'resty.exec'.new('/tmp/exec.sock')
            prog.stdout = function(v)
                ngx.print(v)
                ngx.flush(true)
            end
            prog('/usr/local/bin/slow-print')
        }
        # look in `/misc` of this repo for `slow-print`
    }
    location /shell {
        content_by_lua_block {
            local prog = require'resty.exec'.new('/tmp/exec.sock')
            local data, err = prog('bash','-c','echo $PATH')
            if(err) then
                ngx.say(err)
            else
                ngx.say(data.stdout)
            end
        }
    }
    

License

MIT license (see LICENSE)

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