This is the first step in addressing #113 and the initial support
of #130. Basically this allows (sub)processes to engage the `pdbpp`
debug machinery which read/writes the root actor's tty but only in
a FIFO semaphored way such that no two processes are using it
simultaneously. That means you can have multiple actors enter a trace or
crash and run the debugger in a sensible way without clobbering each
other's access to stdio. It required adding some "tear down hooks" to
a custom `pdbpp.Pdb` type such that we release a child's lock on the
parent on debugger exit (in this case when either of the "continue" or
"quit" commands are issued to the debugger console).
There's some code left commented in anticipation of full support for
issue #130 where we're need to actually capture and feed stdin to the
target (remote) actor which won't necessarily being running on the same
host.
Allow entering and attaching to a `pdb` instance in a child process.
The current hackery is to have the child make an rpc to the parent and
ask it to hijack stdin, once complete the child enters a `pdb` blocking
method. The parent then relays all stdin input to the child thus
controlling the "remote" debugger.
A few things were added to accomplish this:
- tracking the mapping of subactors to their parent nurseries
- in the root actor, cancelling all nurseries under the root `trio` task
on cancellation (i.e. `Actor.cancel()`)
- pass a "runtime vars" map down the actor tree for propagating global state
In an effort acquire more deterministic actor cancellation,
this adds a clearer and more resilient (whilst possibly a bit
slower) internal nursery structure with explicit semantics for
clarifying the task-scope shutdown sequence.
Namely, on cancellation, the explicit steps are now:
- cancel all currently running rpc tasks and wait
for them to complete
- cancel the channel server and wait for it to complete
- cancel the msg loop for the channel with the immediate parent
- de-register with arbiter if possible
- wait on remaining connections to release
- exit process
To accomplish this add a new nursery called the "service nursery" which
spawns all rpc tasks **instead of using** the "root nursery". The root
is now used solely for async launching the msg loop for the primary
channel with the parent such that it is (nearly) the last thing torn
down on cancellation.
In the future it should also be possible to have `self.cancel()` return
a result to the parent once the runtime is sure that the rest of the
shutdown is atomic; this would allow for a true unbounded shield in
`Portal.cancel_actor()`. This will likely require that the error
handling blocks in `Actor._async_main()` are moved "inside" the root
nursery block such that the msg loop with the parent truly is the last
thing to terminate.
In order to have reliable subactor startup we need the following
sequence to take place:
- connect to the parent actor, handshake and receive runtime state
- load exposed modules into memory
- start the channel server up fully using the provided bind address
- finally, start processing new messages from the parent
Add a bunch more comments to clarify all this.
Instead of hackery trying to map modules manually from the filesystem
let Python do all the work by simply copying what ``multiprocessing``
does to "fixup the __main__ module" in spawned subprocesses. The new
private module ``_mp_fixup_main.py`` is simply cherry picked code from
``multiprocessing.spawn`` which does just that. We only need these
"fixups" when using a backend other then ``multiprocessing``; for
now just when using ``trio_run_in_process``.
Thanks to @salotz for pointing out that the first example in the docs
was broken. Though it's somewhat embarrassing this might also explain
the problem in #79 and certain issues in #59...
The solution here is to import the target RPC module using the its
unique basename and absolute filepath in the sub-actor that requires it.
Special handling for `__main__` and `__mp_main__` is needed since the
spawned subprocess will have no knowledge about these parent-
-state-specific module variables. Solution: map the modules name to the
respective module file basename in the child process since the module
variables will of course have different values in children.
Set `trio-run-in-process` as the default on *nix systems and
`multiprocessing`'s spawn method on Windows. Enable overriding the
default choice using `tractor._spawn.try_set_start_method()`. Allows
for easy runs of the test suite using a user chosen backend.
Get a few more things working:
- fail reliably when remote module loading goes awry
- do a real hacky job of module loading using `sys.path` stuffsies
- we're still totally borked when trying to spin up and quickly cancel
a bunch of subactors...
It's a small move forward I guess.
`trio.MultiError` isn't an `Exception` (derived instead from
`BaseException`) so we have to specially catch it in the task
invocation machinery and ship it upwards (like regular errors)
since nurseries running in sub-actors can raise them.
Add `@tractor.stream` which must be used to denote non async generator
streaming functions which use the `tractor.Context` API to push values.
This enforces a more explicit denotation as well as allows enforcing the
declaration of the `ctx` argument in definitions.
This begins moving toward explicitly decorated "streaming functions"
instead of checking for a `ctx` arg in the signature.
- provide each context with its task's top level `trio.CancelScope`
such that tasks can cancel themselves explictly if needed via calling
`Context.cancel_scope()`
- make `Actor.cancel_task()` a private method (`_cancel_task()`) and
handle remote rpc calls specially such that the caller does not need
to provide the `chan` argument; non-primitive types can't be passed on
the wire and we don't want the client actor be require knowledge of
the channel instance the request is associated with. This also ties into
how we're tracking tasks right now (`Actor._rpc_tasks` is keyed by the
call id, a UUID, *plus* the channel).
- make `_do_handshake` a private actor method
- use UUID version 4
Add full support for using the "spawn" process starting method as per:
https://docs.python.org/3/library/multiprocessing.html#contexts-and-start-methods
Add a `spawn_method` argument to `tractor.run()` for specifying the
desired method explicitly. By default use the "fastest" method available.
On *nix systems this is the original "forkserver" method.
This should be the solution to getting windows support!
Resolves#60
As mentioned in prior commits there's currently a bug in Python that
make async gens **not** task safe. Since this is the core cause of almost
all recent problems, instead implement our own async iterator derivative of
`trio.abc.ReceiveChannel` by wrapping a `trio._channel.MemoryReceiveChannel`.
This fits more natively with the memory channel API in ``trio`` and adds
potentially more flexibility for possible bidirectional inter-actor streaming
in the future.
Huge thanks to @oremanj and of course @njsmith for guidance on this one!
Enable cancelling specific tasks from a peer actor such that when
a actor task or the actor itself is cancelled, remotely spawned tasks
can also be cancelled. In much that same way that you'd expect a node
(task) in the `trio` task tree to cancel any subtasks, actors should
be able to cancel any tasks they spawn in separate processes.
To enable this:
- track rpc tasks in a flat dict keyed by (chan, cid)
- store a `is_complete` event to enable waiting on specific
tasks to complete
- allow for shielding the msg loop inside an internal cancel scope
if requested by the caller; there was an issue with `open_portal()`
where the channel would be torn down because the current task was
cancelled but we still need messaging to continue until the portal
block is exited
- throw an error if the arbiter tries to find itself for now
Instead of chan/cid, whenever a remote function defines a `ctx` argument
name deliver a `Context` instance to the function. This allows remote
funcs to provide async generator like streaming replies (and maybe more
later).
Additionally,
- load actor modules *after* establishing a connection to the spawning
parent to avoid crashing before the error can be reported upwards
- fix a bug to do with unpacking and raising local internal actor errors
from received messages
RPC module/function lookups should not cause the target actor to crash.
This change instead ships the error back to the calling actor allowing
for the remote actor to continue running depending on the caller's
error handling logic. Adds a new `ModuleNotExposed` error to accommodate.
I'm not sure how this ever worked but when a "fake" async gen
(i.e. function with special `chan`, `cid` kwargs) is completed
we need to signal the end of the stream just like with normal
async gens. Also don't fail when trying to remove tasks that were
never tracked.
Fixes#46