Fallen

A simpler daemon library for Ruby processes.

require "fallen"

module Azazel
  extend Fallen
  
  def self.run
    while running?
      puts "Time is on my side... Yes it is..."
      sleep 666
    end
  end
end

Azazel.start!

This will print Time is on my side... Yes it is.. every 666 seconds on STDOUT. You can stop the daemon by pressing CTRL+c.

Fallen accepts the following methods:

• daemonize!: detaches the process and keep running it on background;
• chdir!: changes the current working directory of the process (useful for log and pid files);
• pid_file: allows to indicate a file path where the daemon PID will be stored; could be either an absolute path or a relative path to the current working directory (see chdir!);
• stdout, stderr & stdin: redirects the process STDOUT, STDERR and STDIN to either an absolute or relative file path; note that when a process is daemonized by default all these streams are redirected to /dev/null.

For example, the previous example could have the following lines before Azazel.start! to store the PID and log to a file:

Azazel.pid_file "/var/run/azazel.pid"
Azazel.stdout "/var/log/azazel.log"
Azazel.daemonize!
Azazel.start!

Fallen supports command line parameters, by default using the clap gem. In order to enable command line support you need to do the following:

require "fallen"
require "fallen/cli"

module Azazel
  extend Fallen
  extend Fallen::CLI
  
  # ...
  
  def usage
    puts "..." # Your usage message
    # Default Fallen usage options
    puts fallen_usage
  end
end

case Clap.run(ARGV, Azazel.cli).first
when "start"
  Azazel.start!
when "stop"
  Azazel.stop!
else
  Azazel.usage
end

Azazel.usage will print the following:

Fallen introduced command line arguments:

  -D    Daemonize this process
  -C    Change directory.
  -P    Path to PID file. Only used in daemonized process.
  -out  Path to redirect STDOUT.
  -err  Path to redirect STDERR.
  -in   Path to redirect STDIN.

See the UNLICENSE file included with this gem distribution.