[[spawning_methods_explained]]
== Appendix C: Spawning methods explained ==

At its core, Phusion Passenger is an HTTP proxy and process manager. It spawns
Ruby on Rails/Rack/WSGI worker processes (which may also be referred to as
'backend processes'), and forwards incoming HTTP request to one of the worker
processes.

While this may sound simple, there's not just one way to spawn worker processes.
Let's go over the different spawning methods. For simplicity's sake, let's
assume that we're only talking about Ruby on Rails applications.

=== The most straightforward and traditional way: conservative spawning ===

Phusion Passenger could create a new Ruby process, which will then load the
Rails application along with the entire Rails framework. This process will then
enter an request handling main loop.

This is the most straightforward way to spawn worker processes. If you're
familiar with the Mongrel application server, then this approach is exactly
what mongrel_cluster performs: it creates N worker processes, each which loads
a full copy of the Rails application and the Rails framework in memory. The Thin
application server employs pretty much the same approach.

Note that Phusion Passenger's version of conservative spawning differs slightly
from mongrel_cluster. Mongrel_cluster creates entirely new Ruby processes. In
programmers jargon, mongrel_cluster creates new Ruby processes by forking the
current process and exec()-ing a new Ruby interpreter. Phusion Passenger on the
other hand creates processes that reuse the already loaded Ruby interpreter. In
programmers jargon, Phusion Passenger calls fork(), but not exec().

=== The smart spawning method ===

NOTE: Smart spawning is supported for all Ruby applications but not for WSGI applications.

While conservative spawning works well, it's not as efficient as it could be
because each worker process has its own private copy of the Rails application
as well as the Rails framework. This wastes memory as well as startup time.

image:images/conservative_spawning.png[Worker processes and conservative spawning] +
'Figure: Worker processes and conservative spawning. Each worker process has its
own private copy of the application code and Rails framework code.'

It is possible to make the different worker processes share the memory occupied
by application and Rails framework code, by utilizing so-called
copy-on-write semantics of the virtual memory system on modern operating
systems. As a side effect, the startup time is also reduced. This is technique
is exploited by Phusion Passenger's 'smart' and 'smart-lv2' spawn methods.

==== How it works ====

When the 'smart-lv2' spawn method is being used, Phusion Passenger will first
create a so-called 'ApplicationSpawner server' process. This process loads the
entire Rails application along with the Rails framework, by loading
'environment.rb'. Then, whenever Phusion Passenger needs a new worker process,
it will instruct the ApplicationSpawner server to do so. The ApplicationSpawner
server will create a worker new process
that reuses the already loaded Rails application/framework. Creating a worker
process through an already running ApplicationSpawner server is very fast, about
10 times faster than loading the Rails application/framework from scratch. If
the Ruby interpreter is copy-on-write friendly (that is, if you're running
<<reducing_memory_usage,Ruby Enterprise Edition>>) then all created worker
processes will share as much common
memory as possible. That is, they will all share the same application and Rails
framework code.

image:images/smart-lv2.png[] +
'Figure: Worker processes and the smart-lv2 spawn method. All worker processes,
as well as the ApplicationSpawner, share the same application code and Rails
framework code.'

The 'smart' spawn method goes even further, by caching the Rails framework in
another process called the 'FrameworkSpawner server'. This process only loads
the Rails framework, not the application. When a FrameworkSpawner server is
instructed to create a new worker process, it will create a new
ApplicationSpawner to which the instruction will be delegated. All those
ApplicationSpawner servers, as well as all worker processes created by those
ApplicationSpawner servers, will share the same Rails framework code.

The 'smart-lv2' method allows different worker processes that belong to the same
application to share memory. The 'smart' method allows different worker
processes - that happen to use the same Rails version - to share memory, even if
they don't belong to the same application.

Notes:

- Vendored Rails frameworks cannot be shared by different applications, even if
  both vendored Rails frameworks are the same version. So for efficiency reasons
  we don't recommend vendoring Rails.
- ApplicationSpawner and FrameworkSpawner servers have an idle timeout just
  like worker processes. If an ApplicationSpawner/FrameworkSpawner server hasn't
  been instructed to do anything for a while, it will be shutdown in order to
  conserve memory. This idle timeout is configurable.

==== Summary of benefits ====

Suppose that Phusion Passenger needs a new worker process for an application
that uses Rails 2.2.1.

- If the 'smart-lv2' spawning method is used, and an ApplicationSpawner server
  for this application is already running, then worker process creation time is
  about 10 times faster than conservative spawning. This worker process will also
  share application and Rails framework code memory with the ApplicationSpawner
  server and the worker processes that had been spawned by this ApplicationSpawner
  server.
- If the 'smart' spawning method is used, and a FrameworkSpawner server for
  Rails 2.2.1 is already running, but no ApplicationSpawner server for this
  application is running, then worker process creation time is about 2 times
  faster than conservative spawning. If there is an ApplicationSpawner server
  for this application running, then worker process creation time is about 10
  times faster. This worker process will also share application and Rails
  framework code memory with the ApplicationSpawner and FrameworkSpawner
  servers.

You could compare ApplicationSpawner and FrameworkSpawner servers with stem
cells, that have the ability to quickly change into more specific cells (worker
process).

In practice, the smart spawning methods could mean a memory saving of about 33%,
assuming that your Ruby interpreter is <<reducing_memory_usage,copy-on-write friendly>>.

Of course, smart spawning is not without gotchas. But if you understand the
gotchas you can easily reap the benefits of smart spawning.

=== Smart spawning gotcha #1: unintentional file descriptor sharing ===

Because worker processes are created by forking from an ApplicationSpawner
server, it will share all file descriptors that are opened by the
ApplicationSpawner server. (This is part of the semantics of the Unix
'fork()' system call. You might want to Google it if you're not familiar with
it.) A file descriptor is a handle which can be an opened file, an opened socket
connection, a pipe, etc. If different worker processes write to such a file
descriptor at the same time, then their write calls will be interleaved, which
may potentially cause problems.

The problem commonly involves socket connections that are unintentionally being
shared. You can fix it by closing and reestablishing the connection when Phusion
Passenger is creating a new worker process. Phusion Passenger provides the API
call `PhusionPassenger.on_event(:starting_worker_process)` to do so. So you
could insert the following code in your 'environment.rb':

[source, ruby]
-----------------------------------------
if defined?(PhusionPassenger)
    PhusionPassenger.on_event(:starting_worker_process) do |forked|
        if forked
            # We're in smart spawning mode.
            ... code to reestablish socket connections here ...
        else
            # We're in conservative spawning mode. We don't need to do anything.
        end
    end
end
-----------------------------------------

Note that Phusion Passenger automatically reestablishes the connection to the
database upon creating a new worker process, which is why you normally do not
encounter any database issues when using smart spawning mode.

==== Example 1: Memcached connection sharing (harmful) ====

Suppose we have a Rails application that connects to a Memcached server in
'environment.rb'. This causes the ApplicationSpawner to have a socket connection
(file descriptor) to the Memcached server, as shown in the following figure:

 +--------------------+
 | ApplicationSpawner |-----------[Memcached server]
 +--------------------+

Phusion Passenger then proceeds with creating a new Rails worker process, which
is to process incoming HTTP requests. The result will look like this:

 +--------------------+
 | ApplicationSpawner |------+----[Memcached server]
 +--------------------+      |
                             |
 +--------------------+      |
 | Worker process 1   |-----/
 +--------------------+

Since a 'fork()' makes a (virtual) complete copy of a process, all its file
descriptors will be copied as well. What we see here is that ApplicationSpawner
and Worker process 1 both share the same connection to Memcached.

Now supposed that your site gets Slashdotted and Phusion Passenger needs to
spawn another worker process. It does so by forking ApplicationSpawner. The
result is now as follows:

 +--------------------+
 | ApplicationSpawner |------+----[Memcached server]
 +--------------------+      |
                             |
 +--------------------+      |
 | Worker process 1   |-----/|
 +--------------------+      |
                             |
 +--------------------+      |
 | Worker process 2   |-----/
 +--------------------+

As you can see, Worker process 1 and Worker process 2 have the same Memcached
connection.

Suppose that users Joe and Jane visit your website at the same time. Joe's
request is handled by Worker process 1, and Jane's request is handled by Worker
process 2. Both worker processes want to fetch something from Memcached. Suppose
that in order to do that, both handlers need to send a "FETCH" command to Memcached.

But suppose that, after worker process 1 having only sent "FE", a context switch
occurs, and worker process 2 starts sending a "FETCH" command to Memcached as
well. If worker process 2 succeeds in sending only one bye, 'F', then Memcached
will receive a command which begins with "FEF", a command that it does not
recognize. In other words: the data from both handlers get interleaved. And thus
Memcached is forced to handle this as an error.

This problem can be solved by reestablishing the connection to Memcached after forking:

 +--------------------+
 | ApplicationSpawner |------+----[Memcached server]
 +--------------------+      |                   |
                             |                   |
 +--------------------+      |                   |
 | Worker process 1   |-----/|                   |
 +--------------------+      |                   |  <--- created this
                             X                   |       new
                                                 |       connection
                             X <-- closed this   |
 +--------------------+      |     old           |
 | Worker process 2   |-----/      connection    |
 +--------------------+                          |
           |                                     |
           +-------------------------------------+

Worker process 2 now has its own, separate communication channel with Memcached.
The code in 'environment.rb' looks like this:

[source, ruby]
-----------------------------------------
if defined?(PhusionPassenger)
    PhusionPassenger.on_event(:starting_worker_process) do |forked|
        if forked
            # We're in smart spawning mode.
            reestablish_connection_to_memcached
        else
            # We're in conservative spawning mode. We don't need to do anything.
        end
    end
end
-----------------------------------------

==== Example 2: Log file sharing (not harmful) ====

There are also cases in which unintentional file descriptor sharing is not harmful.
One such case is log file file descriptor sharing. Even if two processes write
to the log file at the same time, the worst thing that can happen is that the
data in the log file is interleaved.

To guarantee that the data written to the log file is never interleaved, you
must synchronize write access via an inter-process synchronization mechanism,
such as file locks. Reopening the log file, like you would have done in the
Memcached example, doesn't help.

=== Smart spawning gotcha #2: the need to revive threads ===

Another part of the 'fork()' system call's semantics is the fact that threads
disappear after a fork call. So if you've created any threads in environment.rb,
then those threads will no longer be running in newly created worker process.
You need to revive them when a new worker process is created. Use the
`:starting_worker_process` event that Phusion Passenger provides, like this:

[source, ruby]
-----------------------------------------
if defined?(PhusionPassenger)
    PhusionPassenger.on_event(:starting_worker_process) do |forked|
        if forked
            # We're in smart spawning mode.
            ... code to revive threads here ...
        else
            # We're in conservative spawning mode. We don't need to do anything.
        end
    end
end
-----------------------------------------

=== Smart spawning gotcha #3: code load order ===

This gotcha is only applicable to the 'smart' spawn method, not the 'smart-lv2'
spawn method.

If your application expects the Rails framework to be not loaded during the
beginning of 'environment.rb', then it can cause problems when an
ApplicationSpawner is created from a FrameworkSpawner, which already has the
Rails framework loaded. The most common case is when applications try to patch
Rails by dropping a modified file that has the same name as Rails's own file,
in a path that comes earlier in the Ruby search path.

For example, suppose that we have an application which has a patched version
of 'active_record/base.rb' located in 'RAILS_ROOT/lib/patches', and
'RAILS_ROOT/lib/patches' comes first in the Ruby load path. When conservative
spawning is used, the patched version of 'base.rb' is properly loaded. When
'smart' (not 'smart-lv2') spawning is used, the original 'base.rb' is used
because it was already loaded, so a subsequent `require "active_record/base"`
has no effect.
