Lock file for access on windows - python

Using portalocker we can lock a file for access through the following way:
f=open("M99","r+")
portalocker.lock(f,portalocker.LOCK_EX)
The lock over the file can be removed using
f.close() #or
portalocker.unlock(file) #needs `file` ie reference to file it locked ..pretty obvious too
Can this same thing be done by any other way in python wherein
We can lock the file for access
Restart Python (so no longer have the original Python file object or file number).
Unlock the file for access in the new process.
I cannot save f or file object so can't use pickle or something either. Is there a way using the Python standard library or some win32api call?
Any windows utility will also do...any command line from windows?

It appears you want to lock access to resources where the lock persists between program invocations. You need a different strategy for that.
Create a lock file using exclusive create mode; in Python 2 this requires using the os.open() call (followed by os.fdopen() to produce a Python file object), in Python 3 you can use the 'x' mode when using the built-in open().
In Python 2:
import os
LOCKFILE = r'some\path\to\lockfile'
class AlreadyLocked(Exception):
pass
def lock():
try:
fd = os.open(LOCKFILE, os.O_WRONLY | os.O_CREAT | os.O_EXCL)
except IOError:
# file already exists
raise AlreadyLocked()
with os.fdopen(fd, 'w') as lockfile:
# write the PID of the current process so you can debug
# later if a lockfile can be deleted after a program crash
lockfile.write(os.getpid())
def unlock():
os.remove(LOCKFILE)
In Python 3 the lock() function would be:
def lock():
try:
with open(LOCKFILE, 'x') as lockfile:
# write the PID of the current process so you can debug
# later if a lockfile can be deleted after a program crash
lockfile.write(os.getpid())
except IOError:
# file already exists
raise AlreadyLocked()
You need to use exclusive create mode to avoid race conditions; in exclusive create mode the file can only be created if it doesn't yet exist, a condition checked by the Operating System, rather than by a separate step in Python which would open a window for another program to create the lock as well.
Now you can lock and unlock without tracking the file descriptor. The lockfile is now a signal file; if it is present something has claimed a lock, and deleting the file means something is unlocked.
This does mean that access to the files or directories you are trying to protect is only protected because all your code honours this lock system, not because the OS is enforcing locks on those files or directories.
This all means that this only works if all access to the shared resource is handled by processes that cooperate in this strategy. It cannot be used if another process doesn't honour this scheme. In that case your only option is to use OS level locking and you have to keep your process running for the full duration of the lock.

there is a method in win32api to set file attributes if you have a read of the following:
python SetFileAttributes
MSDN file attributes
these give you the python method to set file attributes:
win32api.SetFileAttributes(file, win32con.FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL)
where file is the name/path of the file, and not a file object
and the second argument is a attribute mask, is you wanted to set several attributes at once, you can use bitwise xor to add them:
win32con.FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN | win32con.FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY
and there are more constants named in the MSDN page.
EDIT:
for file locking you can also look at the win32file.LockFileEx method
i haven't used this before so it may take some playing around, but it appears to need you to pass it a file object (not a path) and then certain constants to set the access permissions, more info on the constants can be found on MSDN

You could use subprocess to open the file in notepad or excel:
import subprocess, time
subprocess.call('start excel.exe "\lockThisFile.txt\"', shell = True)
time.sleep(10) # if you need the file locked before executing the next commands, you may need to sleep it for a few seconds
or
subprocess.call('notepad > lockThisFile.txt', shell = True)
As written you need shell = True, otherwise windows will give you a syntax error.
(subprocess.Popen() works as well)
You can then close the process later using:
subprocess.call('taskkill /f /im notepad.exe') # or excel.exe
Other options include
-write some C++ code and call it from python (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365203(v=vs.85).aspx)
-call 3rd party programs with subprocess.call():
FileLocker http://www.jensscheffler.de/filelocker (https://superuser.com/questions/294826/how-to-purposefully-exclusively-lock-a-file)
Easy File Locker http://www.xoslab.com/efl.html and Dispatch (from win32com.client import Dispatch), although last choice is the most complex

Related

how to solve python ilock FileNotFoundError?

so i am trying to use ilock in python as a system wide lock, but after few iterations in my code i get the following error, what might cause such an error? and how i can start solving it
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/tmp/ilock-bfe0d208735d8d5f20bb2b8abcf8bf67d696f23629b4ee2d4e7304f69063db61.lock'
I'm seeing the same error. Looks to me like it's a bug in the ilock library.
In short, when two ILock objects are created with the same unique name, they'll use the same file as the locking entity (passed to portalocker). They create the file (if it doesn't exist) using open(path, 'w') upon ILock.__enter__, and they call os.unlink(path) upon ILock.__exit__.
However consider the following scenario:
process1: ILock.__enter__ # file is created, lock acquired
process2: ILock.__enter__ # file already exists, lock pending
process1: does its thing under the lock
process1: ILock.__exit__ # file is unlinked, lock released
process2: does its thing under the lock
process2: ILock.__exit__ # Error: cannot unlink, file does not exist
On the surface, it could be that this can be fixed by silently allowing unlink to fail; or perhaps, by recreating the file as necessary after the lock has been acquired. I am not sure though if portalocker would behave nicely in this case.
Perhaps the easiest workaround is to simply NEVER delete the file (get rid of os.unlink altogether).

Swift task open file descriptor of pipe

I am trying to open a Swift Pipe from a python script that is executed via a Swift Task
Swift code
let pipe=Pipe()
let task = Process()
var env=ProcessInfo.processInfo.environment
task.launchPath = "/pythonscript.py"
let fh=pipe.fileHandleForWriting
task.arguments = ["\(fh.fileDescriptor)"]
task.launch()
Python
#!/usr/local/bin/python
import os
import sys
fd=int(sys.argv[1])
print(os.fdopen(fd, u'w'))
What I get back from the python script is
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./test.py", line 7, in <module>
print(os.fdopen(fd, u'w'))
OSError: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor
Why can't python open the file descriptor I created in Swift?
Why can't python open the file descriptor I created in Swift?
Short answer (fudging a little): because the file descriptor is a process local identifier which is used by the OS to link to the open file information it keeps for process. You cannot copy them between processes.
Long answer:
In macOS/Unix/Linux (*nix) a file descriptor is just a process-local value which is used by the OS to link to the appropriate open file information within the OS. Different processes can have exactly the same file descriptor values which identify completely different files. Therefore you cannot simply copy a file descriptor value between processes.
In *nix a child process inherits the open files, and their associated descriptors, from its parent. This is the only way file descriptors get passed between processes. In outline the steps are:
The parent process forks, creating a clone of itself
The clone then closes any files the child should not access (usually all of them except the standard input, output and error files).
If the parent has pre-opened files that should be the child's standard input, output or error the clone then reassigns the file descriptors for those files to the standard file descriptors for standard input, output and error.
After all this file descriptor work is done the clone then replaces its code with the code the child needs to run - this keeps the open files and file descriptors.
The child code now executes unaware of all this setup.
In Swift all the above is handled by Process, in Terminal it is handled by the shell which uses it to set up file redirection, pipes etc.
To get your pipe to your Python process you can (a) use the Process methods to attach it to the spawned processes standard input or output; (b) create a named pipe, that is one with a file path, and pass the file path to your python to open; or (c) go low-level and write some interfacing C code which does the fork/dup(2)/exec calls and starts up your python code with the pipe on a known descriptor other than standard input or output.
(a) is easiest! (b) requires you to do some research on named pipes, its not hard but you'll need work with sandboxing if its enabled and create the pipe in a directory both process can access. (c) is best avoided.
Have fun, and if you get stuck ask a new question showing what you've tried, where it goes wrong, etc. and someone will undoubtedly help you along.
HTH

Can't access temporary files created with tempfile

I am using tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() to store some text until the program ends. On Unix is working without any issues but on Windows the file returned isn't accessible for reading or writing: python gives Errno 13. The only way is to set delete=False and manually delete the file with os.remove(). Why?
This causes the IOError because the file can be opened only once after it is created.
The reason is because NamedTemporaryFile creates the file with FILE_SHARE_DELETE flag on Windows. On Windows when a file has been created/opened with specific share flag all subsequent open operations have to pass this share flag. It's not the case with Python's open function which does not pass FILE_SHARE_DELETE flag. See my answer on How to create a temporary file that can be read by a subprocess? question for more details and a workaround.
Take a look: http://docs.python.org/2/library/tempfile.html
tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile([mode='w+b'[, bufsize=-1[, suffix=''[, prefix='tmp'[, dir=None[, delete=True]]]]]])
This function operates exactly as TemporaryFile() does, except that the file is guaranteed to have a visible name in the file system (on Unix, the directory entry is not unlinked). That name can be retrieved from the name attribute of the file object. Whether the name can be used to open the file a second time, while the named temporary file is still open, varies across platforms (it can be so used on Unix; it cannot on Windows NT or later). If delete is true (the default), the file is deleted as soon as it is closed.
Thanks to #Rnhmjoj here is a working solution:
file = NamedTemporaryFile(delete=False)
file.close()
You have to keep the file with the delete-flag and then close it after creation. This way, Windows will unlock the file and you can do stuff with it!

How can I get the default file permissions in Python?

I am writing a Python script in which I write output to a temporary file and then move that file to its final destination once it is finished and closed. When the script finishes, I want the output file to have the same permissions as if it had been created normally through open(filename,"w"). As it is, the file will have the restrictive set of permissions used by the tempfile module for temp files.
Is there a way for me to figure out what the "default" file permissions for the output file would be if I created it in place, so that I can apply them to the temp file before moving it?
For the record, I had a similar issue, here is the code I have used:
import os
from tempfile import NamedTemporaryFile
def UmaskNamedTemporaryFile(*args, **kargs):
fdesc = NamedTemporaryFile(*args, **kargs)
# we need to set umask to get its current value. As noted
# by Florian Brucker (comment), this is a potential security
# issue, as it affects all the threads. Considering that it is
# less a problem to create a file with permissions 000 than 666,
# we use 666 as the umask temporary value.
umask = os.umask(0o666)
os.umask(umask)
os.chmod(fdesc.name, 0o666 & ~umask)
return fdesc
There is a function umask in the os module. You cannot get the current umask per se, you have to set it and the function returns the previous setting.
The umask is inherited from the parent process. It describes, which bits are not to be set when creating a file or directory.
This way is slow but safe and will work on any system that has a 'umask' shell command:
def current_umask() -> int:
"""Makes a best attempt to determine the current umask value of the calling process in a safe way.
Unfortunately, os.umask() is not threadsafe and poses a security risk, since there is no way to read
the current umask without temporarily setting it to a new value, then restoring it, which will affect
permissions on files created by other threads in this process during the time the umask is changed.
On recent linux kernels (>= 4.1), the current umask can be read from /proc/self/status.
On older systems, the safest way is to spawn a shell and execute the 'umask' command. The shell will
inherit the current process's umask, and will use the unsafe call, but it does so in a separate,
single-threaded process, which makes it safe.
Returns:
int: The current process's umask value
"""
mask: Optional[int] = None
try:
with open('/proc/self/status') as fd:
for line in fd:
if line.startswith('Umask:'):
mask = int(line[6:].strip(), 8)
break
except FileNotFoundError:
pass
except ValueError:
pass
if mask is None:
import subprocess
mask = int(subprocess.check_output('umask', shell=True).decode('utf-8').strip(), 8)
return mask
import os
def current_umask() -> int:
tmp = os.umask(0o022)
os.umask(tmp)
return tmp
This function is implemented in some python packages, e.g. pip and setuptools.

Detect file handle leaks in python?

My program appears to be leaking file handles. How can I find out where?
My program uses file handles in a few different places—output from child processes, call ctypes API (ImageMagick) opens files, and they are copied.
It crashes in shutil.copyfile, but I'm pretty sure this is not the place it is leaking.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\magpy\magpy.py", line 874, in main
magpy.run_all()
File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\magpy\magpy.py", line 656, in run_all
[operation.operate() for operation in operations]
File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\magpy\magpy.py", line 417, in operate
output_file = self.place_image(output_file)
File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\magpy\magpy.py", line 336, in place_image
shutil.copyfile(str(input_file), str(self.full_filename))
File "C:\Python25\Lib\shutil.py", line 47, in copyfile
fdst = open(dst, 'wb')
IOError: [Errno 24] Too many open files: 'C:\\Documents and Settings\\stuart.axon\\Desktop\\calzone\\output\\wwtbam4\\Nokia_NCD\\nl\\icon_42x42_V000.png'
Press any key to continue . . .
I had similar problems, running out of file descriptors during subprocess.Popen() calls. I used the following script to debug on what is happening:
import os
import stat
_fd_types = (
('REG', stat.S_ISREG),
('FIFO', stat.S_ISFIFO),
('DIR', stat.S_ISDIR),
('CHR', stat.S_ISCHR),
('BLK', stat.S_ISBLK),
('LNK', stat.S_ISLNK),
('SOCK', stat.S_ISSOCK)
)
def fd_table_status():
result = []
for fd in range(100):
try:
s = os.fstat(fd)
except:
continue
for fd_type, func in _fd_types:
if func(s.st_mode):
break
else:
fd_type = str(s.st_mode)
result.append((fd, fd_type))
return result
def fd_table_status_logify(fd_table_result):
return ('Open file handles: ' +
', '.join(['{0}: {1}'.format(*i) for i in fd_table_result]))
def fd_table_status_str():
return fd_table_status_logify(fd_table_status())
if __name__=='__main__':
print fd_table_status_str()
You can import this module and call fd_table_status_str() to log the file descriptor table status at different points in your code.
Also, make sure that subprocess.Popen instances are destroyed. Keeping references of Popen instances in Windows prevent the GC from running. And if the instances are kept, the associated pipes are not closed. More info here.
Use Process Explorer, select your process, View->Lower Pane View->Handles - then look for what seems out of place - usually lots of the same or similar files open points to the problem.
lsof -p <process_id> works well on several UNIX-like systems including FreeBSD.
Look at the output from ls -l /proc/$pid/fd/ (substituting the PID of your process, of course) to see which files are open [or, on win32, use Process Explorer to list open files]; then figure out where in your code you're opening them, and make sure that close() is being called. (Yes, the garbage collector will eventually close things, but it's not always fast enough to avoid running out of fds).
Checking for any circular references which might be preventing garbage collection is also a good practice. (The cycle collector will eventually dispose of these -- but it may not run frequently enough to avoid file descriptor exhaustion; I've been bitten by this personally).
While the OP has a Windows system, I'm sure plenty of people here (such as myself) are looking for others too (it's not even tagged Windows).
Google has a psutil package with a get_open_files() method. It looks like an excellent interface, but it hasn't been maintained in a couple years it seems. I actually wrote an implementation for my own Python 2 project on Linux. I'm using it with unittest to make sure my functions clean up their resources.
import os
# calling this **synchronously** will accurately relay open files on Linux
def get_open_files(pid):
# directory spawned by Python process, containing its file descriptors
path = "/proc/%d/fd" % pid
# list the abspaths belonging to that directory
links = ["%s/%s" % (path, f) for f in os.listdir(path)]
# filter out the bad ones returned by os.listdir()
valid_links = filter(lambda f: os.path.exists(f), links)
# these links are fd integers, so map them to their actual file devices
devices = map(lambda f: os.readlink(f), valid_links)
# remove any ones that are stdin, stdout, stderr, etc.
return filter(lambda f: "/dev/pts" not in f, devices)
Python's own test suite has a refleak module that utilizes fd_count. Works across operating systems and is available on full installs:
>>> from test.support.os_helper import fd_count
>>> fd_count()
27
On Python 3.9 and earlier, the os_helper doesn't exist, so from test.support import fd_count.

Categories

Resources