Develop Reference

Multithreaded TCP socket

I'm trying to create a threaded TCP socket server that can handle multiple socket request at a time.
To test it, I launch several thread in the client side to see if my server can handle it. The first socket is printed successfully but I get a [Errno 32] Broken pipe for the others.
I don't know how to avoid it.
import threading
import socketserver
import graphitesend
class ThreadedTCPRequestHandler(socketserver.BaseRequestHandler):
def handle(self):
data = self.request.recv(1024)
if data != "":
print(data)
class ThreadedTCPServer(socketserver.ThreadingTCPServer):
allow_reuse_address = True
def __init__(self, host, port):
socketserver.ThreadingTCPServer.__init__(self, (host, port), ThreadedTCPRequestHandler)
def stop(self):
self.server_close()
self.shutdown()
def start(self):
threading.Thread(target=self._on_started).start()
def _on_started(self):
self.serve_forever()
def client(g):
g.send("test", 1)
if __name__ == "__main__":
HOST, PORT = "localhost", 2003
server = ThreadedTCPServer(HOST, PORT)
server.start()
g = graphitesend.init(graphite_server = HOST, graphite_port = PORT)
threading.Thread(target = client, args=(g,)).start()
threading.Thread(target = client, args=(g,)).start()
threading.Thread(target = client, args=(g,)).start()
threading.Thread(target = client, args=(g,)).start()
threading.Thread(target = client, args=(g,)).start()
threading.Thread(target = client, args=(g,)).start()
threading.Thread(target = client, args=(g,)).start()
server.stop()

It's a little bit difficult to determine what exactly you're expecting to happen, but I think the proximate cause is that you aren't giving your clients time to run before killing the server.
When you construct a Thread object and call its start method, you're creating a thread, and getting it ready to run. It will then be placed on the "runnable" task queue on your system, but it will be competing with your main thread and all your other threads (and indeed all other tasks on the same machine) for CPU time.
Your multiple threads (main plus others) are also likely being serialized by the python interpreter's GIL (Global Interpreter Lock -- assuming you're using the "standard" CPython) which means they may not have even gotten "out of the gate" yet.
But then you're shutting down the server with server_close() before they've had a chance to send anything. That's consistent with the "Broken Pipe" error: your remaining clients are attempting to write to a socket that has been closed by the "remote" end.
You should collect the thread objects as you create them and put them in a list (so that you can reference them later). When you're finished creating and starting all of them, then go back through the list and call the .join method on each thread object. This will ensure that the thread has had a chance to finish. Only then should you shut down the server. Something like this:
threads = []
for n in range(7):
th = threading.Thread(target=client, args=(g,))
th.start()
threads.append(th)
# All threads created. Wait for them to finish.
for th in threads:
th.join()
server.stop()
One other thing to note is that all of your clients are sharing the same single connection to send to the server, so that your server will never create more than one thread: as far as it's concerned, there is only a single client. You should probably move the graphitesend.init into the client function if you actually want separate connections for each client.
(Disclaimer: I know nothing about graphitesend except what I could glean in a 15 second glance at the first result in google; I'm assuming it's basically just a wrapper around a TCP connection.)

Address already in use when running flask in another process

I'm working on a camera endpoint for an IoT application and I want to start and stop a flask app on command to show a webpage with streaming camera data. I have all the individual pieces working but it's failing when I put them together.
If I start a flask process after starting another thread it complains that address is already in use. Here's a stripped down example:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
import threading
from flask import Flask
import socket
import time
from multiprocessing import Process
app = Flask(__name__)
def main():
start_thread(udp_listener)
start_process(runflask)
while True:
time.sleep(1)
def start_thread(function, arguments=()):
th = threading.Thread(target=function, args=arguments)
th.daemon = True
th.start()
def start_process(function):
server = Process(target=function)
server.start()
while True:
time.sleep(60)
server.terminate()
server.join()
def udp_listener():
while True:
with socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM) as s:
s.bind(('', 9000))
print('udp listening on port 9000')
while True:
data, server = s.recvfrom(4069)
print('received:')
def runflask():
app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=8001, debug=True)
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Comment out start_thread() and just run start_process() and it's ok.
Comment out start_process() and just run start_thread() and it's ok.
Run both and get an address already in use error even though they're listening on different ports.
Exception in thread Thread-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/threading.py", line 914, in _bootstrap_inner
self.run()
File "/usr/lib/python3.5/threading.py", line 862, in run
self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
File "./webcam_test.py", line 35, in udp_listener
s.bind(('', 9000))
OSError: [Errno 98] Address already in use
I want to run the flask app in a way that will let me start and stop it on command. Should I be doing it a different way?

I was able to resolve this by using a ServerThread as specified here: How to stop flask application without using ctrl-c
It's important to note that calling this ServerThread automatically blocks so if you want an interruptible thread, you need to instantiate this as the child of another thread. My design already spawned threads for each camera mode so now I have a thread calling a thread calling a thread :).
I still don't know why flask, when run as a process, would complain about unrelated listen sockets but now I have a workaround.

Don't how relevant this still is, but:
From a quick glance I don't see any place where the socket you are binding (s.bind(('', 9000))) is being closed. Since it's on a loop it tries to bind a socket that's in use again, hence the error? It should be stopped before binded again:
s.shutdown(1)
s.close()
If this is the case, the first solution I suggest is to close the socket properly, and not have it started in the loop (why do you bind the socket in loop in the first place?)
If this alone does not help, allow the socket to reuse the address:
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
s.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_REUSEADDR, 1)
Python: Binding Socket: "Address already in use"

How can I write a socket server in a different thread from my main program (using gevent)?

I'm developing a Flask/gevent WSGIserver webserver that needs to communicate (in the background) with a hardware device over two sockets using XML.
One socket is initiated by the client (my application) and I can send XML commands to the device. The device answers on a different port and sends back information that my application has to confirm. So my application has to listen to this second port.
Up until now I have issued a command, opened the second port as a server, waited for a response from the device and closed the second port.
The problem is that it's possible that the device sends multiple responses that I have to confirm. So my solution was to keep the port open and keep responding to incoming requests. However, in the end the device is done sending requests, and my application is still listening (I don't know when the device is done), thereby blocking everything else.
This seemed like a perfect use case for a thread, so that my application launches a listening server in a separate thread. Because I'm already using gevent as a WSGI server for Flask, I can use the greenlets.
The problem is, I have looked for a good example of such a thing, but all I can find is examples of multi-threading handlers for a single socket server. I don't need to handle a lot of connections on the socket server, but I need it launched in a separate thread so it can listen for and handle incoming messages while my main program can keep sending messages.
The second problem I'm running into is that in the server, I need to use some methods from my "main" class. Being relatively new to Python I'm unsure how to structure it in a way to make that possible.
class Device(object):
def __init__(self, ...):
self.clientsocket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
self.serversocket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
def _connect_to_device(self):
print "OPEN CONNECTION TO DEVICE"
try:
self.clientsocket.connect((self.ip, 5100))
except socket.error as e:
pass
def _disconnect_from_device(self):
print "CLOSE CONNECTION TO DEVICE"
self.clientsocket.close()
def deviceaction1(self, ...):
# the data that is sent is an XML document that depends on the parameters of this method.
self._connect_to_device()
self._send_data(XMLdoc)
self._wait_for_response()
return True
def _send_data(self, data):
print "SEND:"
print(data)
self.clientsocket.send(data)
def _wait_for_response(self):
print "WAITING FOR REQUESTS FROM DEVICE (CHANNEL 1)"
self.serversocket.bind(('10.0.0.16', 5102))
self.serversocket.listen(5) # listen for answer, maximum 5 connections
connection, address = self.serversocket.accept()
# the data is of a specific length I can calculate
if len(data) > 0:
self._process_response(data)
self.serversocket.close()
def _process_response(self, data):
print "RECEIVED:"
print(data)
# here is some code that processes the incoming data and
# responds to the device
# this may or may not result in more incoming data
if __name__ == '__main__':
machine = Device(ip="10.0.0.240")
Device.deviceaction1(...)
This is (globally, I left out sensitive information) what I'm doing now. As you can see everything is sequential.
If anyone can provide an example of a listening server in a separate thread (preferably using greenlets) and a way to communicate from the listening server back to the spawning thread, it would be of great help.
Thanks.
EDIT:
After trying several methods, I decided to use Pythons default select() method to solve this problem. This worked, so my question regarding the use of threads is no longer relevant. Thanks for the people who provided input for your time and effort.

Hope it can provide some help, In example class if we will call tenMessageSender function then it will fire up an async thread without blocking main loop and then _zmqBasedListener will start listening on separate port untill that thread is alive. and whatever message our tenMessageSender function will send, those will be received by client and respond back to zmqBasedListener.
Server Side
import threading
import zmq
import sys
class Example:
def __init__(self):
self.context = zmq.Context()
self.publisher = self.context.socket(zmq.PUB)
self.publisher.bind('tcp://127.0.0.1:9997')
self.subscriber = self.context.socket(zmq.SUB)
self.thread = threading.Thread(target=self._zmqBasedListener)
def _zmqBasedListener(self):
self.subscriber.connect('tcp://127.0.0.1:9998')
self.subscriber.setsockopt(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, "some_key")
while True:
message = self.subscriber.recv()
print message
sys.exit()
def tenMessageSender(self):
self._decideListener()
for message in range(10):
self.publisher.send("testid : %d: I am a task" %message)
def _decideListener(self):
if not self.thread.is_alive():
print "STARTING THREAD"
self.thread.start()
Client
import zmq
context = zmq.Context()
subscriber = context.socket(zmq.SUB)
subscriber.connect('tcp://127.0.0.1:9997')
publisher = context.socket(zmq.PUB)
publisher.bind('tcp://127.0.0.1:9998')
subscriber.setsockopt(zmq.SUBSCRIBE, "testid")
count = 0
print "Listener"
while True:
message = subscriber.recv()
print message
publisher.send('some_key : Message received %d' %count)
count+=1
Instead of thread you can use greenlet etc.

Python ssl problem with multiprocessing

I want to send data from a client to the server in a TLS TCP socket from multiple client subprocesses so I share the same ssl socket with all subprocesses. Communication works with one subprocess, but if I use more than one subprocesses, the TLS server crashes with an ssl.SSLError (SSL3_GET_RECORD:decryption failed or bad record mac).
More specific: It does not depend which process first calls the SSLSocket.write() method, but this process is the only one from this time on which can call it. If another process calls write(), the server will result in the exception described above.
I used this basic code:
tlsserver.py
import socket, ssl
def deal_with_client(connstream):
data = connstream.read()
while data:
print data
data = connstream.read()
connstream.close()
bindsocket = socket.socket()
bindsocket.bind(('127.0.0.1', 9998))
bindsocket.listen(5)
while True:
newsocket, fromaddr = bindsocket.accept()
connstream = ssl.wrap_socket(newsocket,
server_side=True,
certfile="srv.crt",
keyfile="srv.key",
ssl_version=ssl.PROTOCOL_TLSv1)
deal_with_client(connstream)
tlsclient.py
import socket, ssl
import multiprocessing
class SubProc:
def __init__(self, sock):
self.sock = sock
def do(self):
self.sock.write("Test")
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
ssl_sock = ssl.wrap_socket(s)
ssl_sock.connect(('127.0.0.1', 9998))
print "Connected to", repr(ssl_sock.getpeername())
for x in (1,2):
subproc = SubProc(ssl_sock)
proc = multiprocessing.Process(target=subproc.do)
And this is the backtrace:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "tlsserver.py", line 21, in <module>
deal_with_client(connstream)
File "tlsserver.py", line 7, in deal_with_client
data = connstream.read()
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/ssl.py", line 136, in read
return self._sslobj.read(len)
ssl.SSLError: [Errno 1] _ssl.c:1325: error:1408F119:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_RECORD:decryption failed or bad record mac

The problem is that you're re-using the same connection for both processes. The way SSL encrypts data makes this fail -- the two processes would have to communicate with each other about the state of the shared SSL connection. Even if you do make it work, or if you didn't use SSL, the data would arrive at the server all jumbled up; you would have no real way of distinguishing which bytes came from which process.
What you need to do is give each process its own SSL connection, by making the connection in subproc.do. Alternatively, don't have the subprocesses communicate with the server at all, but rather communicate with the main process, and have the main process relay it over the SSL connection.

Why is host aborting connection?

I'm teaching myself Python networking, and I recalled that back when I was teaching myself threading, I came across this page, so I copied the scripts, updated them for Python 3.1.1 and ran them. They worked perfectly.
Then I made a few modifications. My goal is to do something simple:
The client pickles an integer and sends it to the server.
The server receives the pickled integer, unpickles it, doubles it, then pickles it and sends it back to the client.
The client receives the pickled (and doubled) integer, unpickles it, and outputs it.
Here's the server:
import pickle
import socket
import threading
class ClientThread(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, channel, details):
self.channel = channel
self.details = details
threading.Thread.__init__ ( self )
def run(self):
print('Received connection:', self.details[0])
request = self.channel.recv(1024)
response = pickle.dumps(pickle.loads(request) * 2)
self.channel.send(response)
self.channel.close()
print('Closed connection:', self.details [ 0 ])
server = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
server.bind(('', 2727))
server.listen(5)
while True:
channel, details = server.accept()
ClientThread(channel, details).start()
And here is the client:
import pickle
import socket
import threading
class ConnectionThread(threading.Thread):
def run(self):
client = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
client.connect(('localhost', 2727))
for x in range(10):
client.send(pickle.dumps(x))
print('Sent:',str(x))
print('Received:',repr(pickle.loads(client.recv(1024))))
client.close()
for x in range(5):
ConnectionThread().start()
The server runs fine, and when I run the client it successfully connects and starts sending integers and receiving them back doubled as expected. However, very quickly it exceptions out:
Exception in thread Thread-2:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python30\lib\threading.py", line 507, in _bootstrap_inner
self.run()
File "C:\Users\Imagist\Desktop\server\client.py", line 13, in run
print('Received:',repr(pickle.loads(client.recv(1024))))
socket.error: [Errno 10053] An established connection was aborted by the softwar
e in your host machine
The server continues to run and receives connections just fine; only the client crashes. What's causing this?
EDIT: I got the client working with the following code:
import pickle
import socket
import threading
class ConnectionThread(threading.Thread):
def run(self):
for x in range(10):
client = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
client.connect(('localhost', 2727))
client.send(pickle.dumps(x))
print('Sent:',str(x))
print('Received:',repr(pickle.loads(client.recv(1024))))
client.close()
for x in range(5):
ConnectionThread().start()
However, I still don't understand what's going on. Isn't this just opening and closing the socket a bunch of times? Shouldn't there be time limitations to that (you shouldn't be able to open a socket so soon after closing it)?

Your client is now correct - you want to open the socket send the data, receive the reply and then close the socket.
The error original error was caused by the server closing the socket after it sent the first response which caused the client to receive a connection closed message when it tried to send the second message on the same connection.
However, I still don't understand
what's going on. Isn't this just
opening and closing the socket a bunch
of times?
Yes. This is acceptable, if not the highest performance way of doing things.
Shouldn't there be time
limitations to that (you shouldn't be
able to open a socket so soon after
closing it)?
You can open a client socket as quickly as you like as every time you open a socket you will get a new local port number, meaning that the connections won't interfere. In the server code above, it will start a new thread for each incoming connection.
There are 4 parts to every IP connection (source_address, source_port, destination_address, destination_port) and this quad (as it is known) must change for ever connection. Everything except source_port is fixed for a client socket so that is what the OS changes for you.
Opening server sockets is more troublesome - if you want to open a new server socket quickly, your
server.bind(('', 2727))
Above then you need to read up on SO_REUSEADDR.