Using Signals

General

In unix/linux one can send signals to a program or a script. Some common signals are:

HUP		Terminal log-out
INT		Interrupt signal (Ctrl-C is pressed)
TERM		Termination of the process (as if 'kill' was called)
KILL		Kill of the process (as if 'kill -9' was called)
STOP		Stop the process
USR1		Unspecified user signal (can be given with 'kill -USR1')
USR2		Unspecified user signal (can be given with 'kill -USR2')

Signals can be given using the 'kill' command, but can also be given by the system. One important instance of this is that on SciNet, a TERM signal is sent to a jobs whose requested time is over, after which the job has about 30 seconds to clean up.

As explained below, a program or script can be set up to listen for a particular kind of signal (except for KILL and STOP, which cannot be blocked). When it receive a signal of that kind, its execution is interrupted and a call is made to a function, specified earlier in the program. It is up to the program or script what this signal handling function does but it is a good idea to make the action appropriate for the event that triggers the signal. For instance, a TERM signal should be handled as a request to terminate the application. The user signals USR1 and USR2 do not have a pre-designated meaning and can be used for application-specific actions such as checkpointing.

Trapping signals in bash scripts

To trap signals in a bash script, one has to bind a specific signal to a command or function with the trap command. For example, <source lang="bash">

1. !/bin/bash

trap "echo Term was trapped.; exit" TERM for ((i=0;i<60;i++)) do

 echo $i
 sleep 1

done </source> Running this script in the background and sending it a TERM command ('kill -TERM [pid]') will cause the message 'Term was trapped.' to be printed. Notes:

• The trapped command has to use 'exit' explicitly to stop the script's execution.
• The 'sleep' command in bash cannot be interrupted, which is why the script contains a succession of 1 second 'sleep's.

Another useful example is given on the wiki page about using ramdisk.

Trapping signals in C

To trap signals in a c program, one has to include the signal.h header file: <source lang="c">

1. include <signal.h>

</source> and provide a signal handler function <source lang="c"> void term_trap(int sig) {

  /* do something */

} </source> which is linked to the specific signal somewhere as follows: <source lang="c"> signal(SIGTERM, term_trap); </source> Note that the names of signals are prepended with "SIG" in signal.h.

A minimal example: <source lang="c">

1. include <stdio.h>
2. include <signal.h>
3. include <unistd.h>

void term_trap(int sig) {

   printf("Term was trapped.\n");

}

int main() {

   signal(SIGTERM, term_trap);
   sleep(60);

} </source> Note that the names of the signals are prepended with SIG in C. To test this program:

• save the above code as sigex.c
• compile: icc -O3 -xHost sigex.c -o sigex
• run: sigex&
• note the pid (process idenitfier)
• you can then give the process the term signal with kill -TERM [pid].

Trapping signals in C++

The same method as for a C program works in C++, except the header file is 'csignal'. For example: <source lang="c">

1. include <iostream>
2. include <csignal>
3. include <unistd.h>

void term_trap(int sig) {

   std::cout << "Term was trapped.\n";

}

int main() {

   signal(SIGTERM, term_trap);
   sleep(60);

} </source>

Trapping signals in Fortran

Unfortunately, signal handling in fortran is not standard, and different compilers have different ways of doing this. Below, examples are given for the three fortran compilers available on SciNet: ifort, gfortran, and xlf. These examples were designed such that even though the ways to register the handler differ, the signal handlers themselves are always the same.

ifort <source lang="f77"> C IFORT SIGNAL TRAPPING EXAMPLE

     USE IFPORT
     EXTERNAL TRAP_TERM
     INTEGER  TRAP_TERM
     INTEGER  ERR
         ERR = SIGNAL (SIGTERM, TRAP_TERM, -1)
         CALL SLEEP (60)
     END

C SIGNAL HANDLER FUNCTION

     FUNCTION TRAP_TERM (SIG_NUM)
     INTEGER TRAP_TERM
     INTEGER SIG_NUM
         PRINT *, "Term was trapped."
         TRAP_TERM = 1
     END

</source>

gfortran <source lang="f77"> C GFORTRAN SIGNAL TRAPPING EXAMPLE

     INTRINSIC SIGNAL
     INTEGER SIGTERM
     PARAMETER (SIGTERM = 15)
     EXTERNAL TRAP_TERM
         CALL SIGNAL (SIGTERM, TRAP_TERM)
         CALL SLEEP (60)
     END

C SIGNAL HANDLER FUNCTION

     FUNCTION TRAP_TERM (SIG_NUM)
     INTEGER TRAP_TERM
     INTEGER SIG_NUM
         PRINT *, "Term was trapped."
         TRAP_TERM = 1
     END

</source>

xlf <source lang="f77"> C XLF SIGNAL TRAPPING EXAMPLE

     INCLUDE 'fexcp.h'
     INTEGER SIGTERM
     PARAMETER (SIGTERM = 15)
     EXTERNAL TRAP_TERM
         CALL SIGNAL (SIGTERM, TRAP_TERM)
         CALL SLEEP (60)
     END

C SIGNAL HANDLER FUNCTION

     FUNCTION TRAP_TERM (SIG_NUM)
     INTEGER TRAP_TERM
     INTEGER SIG_NUM
         PRINT *, "Term was trapped."
         TRAP_TERM = 1
     END

</source>