# Bluepill
Bluepill is a simple process monitoring tool written in Ruby. 

## Installation
It's hosted on [rubygems.org][rubygems].

    sudo gem install bluepill

In order to take advantage of logging with syslog, you also need to setup your syslog to log the local6 facility. Edit the appropriate config file for your syslogger (/etc/syslog.conf for syslog) and add a line for local6:

    local6.*          /var/log/bluepill.log

You'll also want to add _/var/log/bluepill.log_ to _/etc/logrotate.d/syslog_ so that it gets rotated.

Lastly, create the _/var/run/bluepill_ directory for bluepill to store its pid and sock files.

## Usage
### Config
Bluepill organizes processes into 3 levels: application -> group -> process. Each process has a few attributes that tell bluepill how to start, stop, and restart it, where to look or put the pid file, what process conditions to monitor and the options for each of those.

The minimum config file looks something like this:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
      end
    end
```

Note that since we specified a PID file and start command, bluepill assumes the process will daemonize itself. If we wanted bluepill to daemonize it for us, we can do (note we still need to specify a PID file):

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        process.daemonize = true
      end
    end
```

If you don't specify a stop command, a TERM signal will be sent by default. Similarly, the default restart action is to issue stop and then start.

Now if we want to do something more meaningful, like actually monitor the process, we do:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        
        process.checks :cpu_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 5, :times => 3
      end
    end
```

We added a line that checks every 10 seconds to make sure the cpu usage of this process is below 5 percent; 3 failed checks results in a restart. We can specify a two-element array for the _times_ option to say that it 3 out of 5 failed attempts results in a restart.

To watch memory usage, we just add one more line:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"

        process.checks :cpu_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 5, :times => 3        
        process.checks :mem_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 100.megabytes, :times => [3,5]
      end
    end
 ```

To watch the modification time of a file, e.g. a log file to ensure the process is actually working add one more line:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"

        process.checks :cpu_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 5, :times => 3        
        process.checks :mem_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 100.megabytes, :times => [3,5]
        process.checks :file_time, :every => 60.seconds, :below => 3.minutes, :filename => "/tmp/some_file.log", :times => 2
      end
    end
 ```

To restart process if it's running too long:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"

        process.checks :running_time, :every => 10.minutes, :below => 24.hours
      end
    end
 ```



We can tell bluepill to give a process some grace time to start/stop/restart before resuming monitoring:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        process.start_grace_time = 3.seconds
        process.stop_grace_time = 5.seconds
        process.restart_grace_time = 8.seconds

        process.checks :cpu_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 5, :times => 3        
        process.checks :mem_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 100.megabytes, :times => [3,5]
      end
    end
```

We can group processes by name:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      5.times do |i|
        app.process("process_name_#{i}") do |process|
          process.group = "mongrels"
          process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
          process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        end
      end
    end
```

If you want to run the process as someone other than root:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        process.uid = "deploy"
        process.gid = "deploy"

        process.checks :cpu_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 5, :times => 3        
        process.checks :mem_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 100.megabytes, :times => [3,5]
      end
    end
```

If you want to include one or more supplementary groups:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        process.uid = "deploy"
        process.gid = "deploy"
        process.supplementary_groups = ['rvm']

        process.checks :cpu_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 5, :times => 3
        process.checks :mem_usage, :every => 10.seconds, :below => 100.megabytes, :times => [3,5]
      end
    end
```

You can also set an app-wide uid/gid:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.uid = "deploy"
      app.gid = "deploy"
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
      end
    end
```

To track resources of child processes, use :include_children:
```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        process.checks :mem_usage, :every => 1.seconds, :below => 5.megabytes, :times => [3,5], :include_children => true
      end
    end
```

To check for flapping:

```ruby
    process.checks :flapping, :times => 2, :within => 30.seconds, :retry_in => 7.seconds
```

To set the working directory to _cd_ into when starting the command:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        process.working_dir = "/path/to/some_directory"
      end
    end
```

You can also have an app-wide working directory:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.working_dir = "/path/to/some_directory"
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
      end
    end
```

Note: We also set the PWD in the environment to the working dir you specify. This is useful for when the working dir is a symlink. Unicorn in particular will cd into the environment variable in PWD when it re-execs to deal with a change in the symlink.

By default, bluepill will send a SIGTERM to your process when stopping.
To change the stop command:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        process.stop_command = "/user/bin/some_stop_command"
      end
    end
```

If you'd like to send a signal or signals to your process to stop it:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/some_start_command"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
        process.stop_signals = [:quit, 30.seconds, :term, 5.seconds, :kill]
      end
    end
```

We added a line that will send a SIGQUIT, wait 30 seconds and check to
see if the process is still up, send a SIGTERM, wait 5 seconds and check
to see if the process is still up, and finally send a SIGKILL.

And lastly, to monitor child processes:

```ruby
    process.monitor_children do |child_process|
      child_process.checks :cpu_usage, :every => 10, :below => 5, :times => 3
      child_process.checks :mem_usage, :every => 10, :below => 100.megabytes, :times => [3, 5]
      
      child_process.stop_command = "kill -QUIT {{PID}}"
    end
```

Note {{PID}} will be substituted for the pid of process in both the stop and restart commands.

### A Note About Output Redirection

While you can specify shell tricks like the following in the start_command of a process:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "cd /tmp/some_dir && SOME_VAR=1 /usr/bin/some_start_command > /tmp/server.log 2>&1"
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
      end
    end
```

We recommend that you _not_ do that and instead use the config options to capture output from your daemons. Like so:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name") do |app|
      app.process("process_name") do |process|
        process.start_command = "/usr/bin/env SOME_VAR=1 /usr/bin/some_start_command"
        
        process.working_dir = "/tmp/some_dir"
        process.stdout = process.stderr = "/tmp/server.log"
        
        process.pid_file = "/tmp/some_pid_file.pid"
      end
    end
```

The main benefit of using the config options is that Bluepill will be able to monitor the correct process instead of just watching the shell that spawned your actual server.

### CLI

#### Usage

    bluepill [app_name] command [options]
	
For the "load" command, the _app_name_ is specified in the config file, and
must not be provided on the command line.

For all other commands, the _app_name_ is optional if there is only
one bluepill daemon running. Otherwise, the _app_name_ must be
provided, because the command will fail when there are multiple
bluepill daemons running. The example commands below leaves out the
_app_name_.

#### Commands

To start a bluepill daemon and load the config for an application:

    sudo bluepill load /path/to/production.pill

To act on a process or group for an application:

    sudo bluepill <start|stop|restart|unmonitor> <process_or_group_name>

To view process statuses for an application:

    sudo bluepill status

To view the log for a process or group for an application:

    sudo bluepill log <process_or_group_name>

To quit the bluepill daemon for an application:

    sudo bluepill quit

### Logging  
By default, bluepill uses syslog local6 facility as described in the installation section. But if for any reason you don&apos;t want to use syslog, you can use a log file. You can do this by setting the :log\_file option in the config:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name", :log_file => "/path/to/bluepill.log") do |app|
      # ...
    end
```

Keep in mind that you still need to set up log rotation (described in the installation section) to keep the log file from growing huge.
    
### Extra options
You can run bluepill in the foreground:

```ruby
    Bluepill.application("app_name", :foreground => true) do |app|
      # ...
    end
```

Note that You must define only one application per config when using foreground mode.

## Links
Code: [http://github.com/arya/bluepill](http://github.com/arya/bluepill)  
Bugs/Features: [http://github.com/arya/bluepill/issues](http://github.com/arya/bluepill/issues)  
Mailing List: [http://groups.google.com/group/bluepill-rb](http://groups.google.com/group/bluepill-rb)


[rubygems]: http://rubygems.org/gems/bluepill