NAME

Sys::FreezeThaw - stop and start all user processes on a machine

SYNOPSIS

use Sys::FreezeThaw;

Sys::FreezeThaw::freezethaw {
   # run code while system is frozen
};

my $token = Sys::FreezeThaw::freeze;
... do something ...
Sys::FreezeThaw::thaw $token;

DESCRIPTION

Operating Systems/Kernels current supported: Linux-2.6/3.0 with /proc.

This module implements a very specific feature: stopping(freezing and thawing/continuing all userspace processes on the machine. It works by sending SIGSTOP to all processes, parent-process first, so that the wait syscall will not trigger on stopped children. Restarting is done in reverse order.

Using the combined function Sys::FreezeThaw::freezethaw is recommended as it will catch runtime errors, but stopping and restarting can be dine via separate function calls.

What could it possibly be sueful for??

Possible uses include: doing atomic file system operations (such as replacing files while they are guaranteed not to be in use), or quieting down a system to investigate suspicious behaviour.

Sys::FreezeThaw::freezethaw { BLOCK }

First tries to stop all processes. If successful, runs the given code block (or code reference), then restarts all processes again. As the system is basically frozen during the code block execution, it should be as fast as possible.

Runtime errors will be caught with eval. If an exception occurs it will be re-thrown after processes are restarted. If processes cannot be frozen or restarted, this function will throw an exception.

Signal handlers for SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGPIPE, SIGHUP, SIGALRM, SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2 will be installed temporarily, so if you want to catch these, you have to do so yourself within the executed code block.

Try to do as few things as possible. For example, outputting text might cause a deadlock, as the terminal emulator on the other side of STDOUT might be stopped, logging to syslog might not work and so on.

The return value of the code block is ignored right now, and the function doesn't yet return anything sensible.

$token = Sys::FreezeThaw::freeze

Send SIGSTOP to all processes, and return a token that allows them to be thawed again.

If an error occurs, an exception will be thrown and all stopped processes will automatically be thawed.

Sys::FreezeThaw::thaw $token

Take a token returned by Sys::FreezeThaw::freeze and send all processes a CONT signal, in the order required for them not to receive child STOP notifications.

$Sys::FreezeThaw::PARTIAL_OK

A boolean that tells freeze whether it is an error if a process cannot be stopped. If false (the default), then freeze will fail if there is an unstoppable process. If it is true, then freeze will pretend it the process stopped.

BUGS

SIGCONT is not unnoticed by processes. Some programs (such as irssi-text) respond by flickering (IMHO a bug in irssi-text). Other programs might have other problems, but actual problems should be rare. However, one shouldn't overuse this module.

AUTHOR

Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
http://home.schmorp.de/