An open source cross-platform process management and supervision service

by vorgio • 3 years ago

17 4 3 years ago

ekiauhce• 3 years ago

How is this project compared to supervisord feature wise?

vorgio2• 3 years ago

I have to admit that Supervisor is much more mature for Meproc, as it has gone through a long process of user feedback and iteration. Meproc, on the other hand, has only recently implemented a rudimentary project. The difference between the two, in my opinion, lies more in their design philosophies. Supervisor was launched earlier, so it heavily relies on configuration files and initially followed a client-server architecture. Later, it added HTTP XML interfaces to address visualization and automation needs. In contrast, Meproc wanted to abandon configuration files from the beginning because they can complicate automation. For example, should the configuration file be updated when new configurations are deployed, and how to ensure consistency between runtime configurations and the contents of the file. To give an inappropriate analogy, Supervisor is like Nginx, a classic software, but it faces challenges in dynamic updates in the current cloud-native environment. That's why alternatives like Unit were developed to compensate for its shortcomings. However, why not design a software from scratch that inherently supports dynamic updates?

theamk• 3 years ago

I don't get the point of this, seems super niche.

There is no config file support, only way to define processes is via API. The function set is pretty bare it seems, I could not even find force-kill code or process termination detection; nor there is process output logging support.

I guess I can see it as a part of larger melang-based app, launching cooperative processes only, but I don't see any value in using as a standalone service.

vorgio2• 3 years ago

Yes, this project is currently relatively simple because it has only been in development for a little over two weeks. Meproc intentionally does not use configuration files in order to achieve better automation. Using configuration files would complicate dynamic updates and automated deployments.

Regarding the termination of processes, the code uses the Kill function. However, it does not provide termination detection. Thank you for the suggestion, it might be a good idea to add this feature. Due to the differences in system APIs between Windows and UNIX, SIGTERM is chosen instead of SIGKILL to ensure compatibility with both platforms.

The issue with the new process not producing any output is mainly due to the differences in the implementation of Melang script on Windows and UNIX. Specifically, the system APIs for launching new processes and redirecting input/output differ significantly between Windows and UNIX, making it challenging to achieve perfect compatibility with Windows at the moment. Currently, the exec function in Melang can retrieve program output on UNIX systems, but it is not used to maintain consistency across both platforms. This is indeed one of the areas that needs improvement in the future.

Thank you for your analysis of the project and providing valuable insights.

An open source cross-platform process management and supervision service

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