Re: [Caml-list] Closing all open file descriptors

[Erik de Castro Lopo <mle+ocaml@mega-nerd.com>]

Dave Benjamin wrote:

> I'm writing a daemon and I would like to be able to close all open file 
> descriptors. As far as I can tell, there is no way to determine the 
> maximum number of file descriptors available, and neither is there a way 
> to get a file descriptor from an integer. The best I've come up with is 
> the following:
> 
>    for fd = 0 to 1024 do
>      try Unix.close (Obj.magic fd : Unix.file_descr)
>      with Unix.Unix_error _ -> ()
>    done;

I remember doing this in a daemon I wrote years ago in C but didn't
do it for a daemon I wrote recently in Ocaml (much nicer for daemons
than *any* other language).

My curiosity was piqued, so I did a bit of a search and found the
rational for this here:

    http://cloud9.hedgee.com/scribbles/daemon

in particular the fghack tool which prevents a daemon that doesn't
close all file descriptors from going into the background :

    http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/fghack.html

One possible solution to this would be a function written in C and
wrapped in Ocaml that does the same as the Obj.magic hack above.

Erik
-- 
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Erik de Castro Lopo
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