Simple ruby daemon

simple_ruby_daemon.rb

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# == Simple Daemon
#
# A simple ruby daemon that you copy and change as needed.
# 
# === How does it work?
#
# All this program does is fork the current process (creates a copy of
# itself) then exits, the fork (child process) then goes on to run your
# daemon code. In this example we are just running a while loop with a
# 1 second sleep.
#
# Most of the code is dedicated to managing a pid file. We want a pid
# file so we can use a monitoring tool to make sure your daemon keeps
# running.
#
# === Why?
#
# Writing a daemon sounds hard but as you can see is not that
# complicated so lets strip away the magic and just write some ruby.
#
# === Usage
#
# You can run this daemon by running:
#
#     $ ./simple_ruby_daemon.rb
#
# or with an optional pid file location as its first argument:
#
#     $ ./simple_ruby_daemon.rb tmp/simple_ruby_daemon.pid
#
# You can check that it is running by running the following:
#
#     $ ps aux | grep simple_ruby_daemon
#
# Author:: Rufus Post  (mailto:[email protected])
class SimpleDaemon
  # Checks to see if the current process is the child process and if not
  # will update the pid file with the child pid.
  def self.start(pid, pidfile)
    unless pid.nil?
      raise "Fork failed" if pid == -1
      write(pid, pidfile) if kill(pid, pidfile)
      exit
    end
  end

  # Attempts to write the pid of the forked process to the pid file.
  def self.write(pid, pidfile)
    File.open pidfile, "w" do |f|
      f.write pid
    end
  rescue ::Exception => e
    $stderr.puts "While writing the PID to file, unexpected #{e.class}: #{e}"
    Process.kill "HUP", pid
  end

  # Try and read the existing pid from the pid file and signal the
  # process. Returns true for a non blocking status.
  def self.kill(pid, pidfile)
    Process.kill "HUP", open(pidfile).read.strip.to_i
    true
  rescue Errno::ENOENT
    $stdout.puts "#{pidfile} did not exist: Errno::ENOENT"
    true
  rescue Errno::ESRCH
    $stdout.puts "Process for the existing PID was not running: Errno::ESRCH"
    true
  rescue Errno::EPERM
    $stderr.puts "Lack of privileges to manage #{pidfile}: Errno::EPERM"
    false
  rescue ::Exception => e
    $stderr.puts "While signaling the PID, unexpected #{e.class}: #{e}"
    false
  end
end

# Process name of your daemon
$0 = "simple ruby daemon"

# Spawn a deamon
SimpleDaemon.start fork, (ARGV.first || '/tmp/simple_ruby_deamon.pid')

# Set up signals for our daemon, for now they just exit the process.
Signal.trap("HUP") { puts "SIGHUP and exit"; exit }
Signal.trap("INT") { puts "SIGINT and exit"; exit }
Signal.trap("QUIT") { puts "SIGQUIT and exit"; exit }

# Remove this loop and replace with your own daemon logic.
loop do
  sleep 1
end