class Net::SSH::Multi::Session

  1. lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb
Parent: Multi

Represents a collection of connections to various servers. It provides an interface for organizing the connections (group), as well as a way to scope commands to a subset of all connections (with). You can also provide a default gateway connection that servers should use when connecting (via). It exposes an interface similar to Net::SSH::Connection::Session for opening SSH channels and executing commands, allowing for these operations to be done in parallel across multiple connections.

Net::SSH::Multi.start do |session|
  # access servers via a gateway
  session.via 'gateway', 'gateway-user'
  # define the servers we want to use
  session.use 'user1@host1'
  session.use 'user2@host2'

  # define servers in groups for more granular access
  session.group :app do
    session.use 'user@app1'
    session.use 'user@app2'
  end

  # execute commands on all servers
  session.exec "uptime"

  # execute commands on a subset of servers
  session.with(:app).exec "hostname"

  # run the aggregated event loop
  session.loop
end

Note that connections are established lazily, as soon as they are needed. You can force the connections to be opened immediately, though, using the connect! method.

Concurrent Connection Limiting

Sometimes you may be dealing with a large number of servers, and if you try to have connections open to all of them simultaneously you'll run into open file handle limitations and such. If this happens to you, you can set the concurrent_connections property of the session. Net::SSH::Multi will then ensure that no more than this number of connections are ever open simultaneously.

Net::SSH::Multi.start(:concurrent_connections => 5) do |session|
  # ...
end

Opening channels and executing commands will still work exactly as before, but Net::SSH::Multi will transparently close finished connections and open pending ones.

Controlling Connection Errors

By default, Net::SSH::Multi will raise an exception if a connection error occurs when connecting to a server. This will typically bubble up and abort the entire connection process. Sometimes, however, you might wish to ignore connection errors, for instance when starting a daemon on a large number of boxes and you know that some of the boxes are going to be unavailable.

To do this, simply set the on_error property of the session to :ignore (or to :warn, if you want a warning message when a connection attempt fails):

Net::SSH::Multi.start(:on_error => :ignore) do |session|
  # ...
end

The default is :fail, which causes the exception to bubble up. Additionally, you can specify a Proc object as the value for on_error, which will be invoked with the server in question if the connection attempt fails. You can force the connection attempt to retry by throwing the :go symbol, with :retry as the payload, or force the exception to be reraised by throwing :go with :raise as the payload:

handler = Proc.new do |server|
  server[:connection_attempts] ||= 0
  if server[:connection_attempts] < 3
    server[:connection_attempts] += 1
    throw :go, :retry
  else
    throw :go, :raise
  end
end
Net::SSH::Multi.start(:on_error => handler) do |session|
  # ...
end

Any other thrown value (or no thrown value at all) will result in the failure being ignored.

Lazily Evaluated Server Definitions

Sometimes you might be dealing with an environment where you don't know the names or addresses of the servers until runtime. You can certainly dynamically build server names and pass them to use, but if the operation to determine the server names is expensive, you might want to defer it until the server is actually needed (especially if the logic of your program is such that you might not even need to connect to that server every time the program runs).

You can do this by passing a block to use:

session.use do |opt|
  lookup_ip_address_of_remote_host
end

See use for more information about this usage.

Included modules

  1. SessionActions

Public Instance Aliases

loop_forever -> loop

Attributes

concurrent_connections [RW]

The number of allowed concurrent connections. No more than this number of sessions will be open at any given time.
default_gateway [R]

The default Net::SSH::Gateway instance to use to connect to the servers. If nil, no default gateway will be used.
default_user [RW]

The default user name to use when connecting to a server. If a user name is not given for a particular server, this value will be used. It defaults to ENV || ENV, or "unknown" if neither of those are set.
groups [R]

The hash of group definitions, mapping each group name to a corresponding Net::SSH::Multi::ServerList.
on_error [RW]

How connection errors should be handled. This defaults to :fail, but may be set to :ignore if connection errors should be ignored, or :warn if connection errors should cause a warning.
server_list [R]

The Net::SSH::Multi::ServerList managed by this session.

Public Class methods

new (options={})

Creates a new Net::SSH::Multi::Session instance. Initially, it contains no server definitions, no group definitions, and no default gateway.

You can set the concurrent_connections property in the options. Setting it to nil (the default) will cause Net::SSH::Multi to ignore any concurrent connection limit and allow all defined sessions to be open simultaneously. Setting it to an integer will cause Net::SSH::Multi to allow no more than that number of concurrently open sessions, opening subsequent sessions only when other sessions finish and close.

Net::SSH::Multi.start(:concurrent_connections => 10) do |session|
  session.use ...
end
[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 171
def initialize(options={})
  @server_list = ServerList.new
  @groups = Hash.new { |h,k| h[k] = ServerList.new }
  @gateway = nil
  @open_groups = []
  @connect_threads = []
  @on_error = :fail
  @default_user = ENV['USER'] || ENV['USERNAME'] || "unknown"

  @open_connections = 0
  @pending_sessions = []
  @session_mutex = Mutex.new

  options.each { |opt, value| send("#{opt}=", value) }
end

Public Instance methods

close ()

Closes the multi-session by shutting down all open server sessions, and the default gateway (if one was specified using via). Note that other gateway connections (e.g., those passed to use directly) will not be closed by this method, and must be managed externally.

[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 402
def close
  server_list.each { |server| server.close_channels }
  loop(0) { busy?(true) }
  server_list.each { |server| server.close }
  default_gateway.shutdown! if default_gateway
end
group (*args)

At its simplest, this associates a named group with a server definition. It can be used in either of two ways:

First, you can use it to associate a group (or array of groups) with a server definition (or array of server definitions). The server definitions must already exist in the server_list array (typically by calling use):

server1 = session.use('host1', 'user1')
server2 = session.use('host2', 'user2')
session.group :app => server1, :web => server2
session.group :staging => [server1, server2]
session.group %w(xen linux) => server2
session.group %w(rackspace backup) => [server1, server2]

Secondly, instead of a mapping of groups to servers, you can just provide a list of group names, and then a block. Inside the block, any calls to use will automatically associate the new server definition with those groups. You can nest group calls, too, which will aggregate the group definitions.

session.group :rackspace, :backup do
  session.use 'host1', 'user1'
  session.group :xen do
    session.use 'host2', 'user2'
  end
end
[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 213
def group(*args)
  mapping = args.last.is_a?(Hash) ? args.pop : {}

  if mapping.any? && block_given?
    raise ArgumentError, "must provide group mapping OR block, not both"
  elsif block_given?
    begin
      saved_groups = open_groups.dup
      open_groups.concat(args.map { |a| a.to_sym }).uniq!
      yield self
    ensure
      open_groups.replace(saved_groups)
    end
  else
    mapping.each do |key, value|
      (open_groups + Array(key)).uniq.each do |grp|
        groups[grp.to_sym].concat(Array(value))
      end
    end
  end
end
loop (wait=nil, &block)

Run the aggregated event loop for all open server sessions, until the given block returns false. If no block is given, the loop will run for as long as busy? returns true (in other words, for as long as there are any (non-invisible) channels open).

[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 415
def loop(wait=nil, &block)
  running = block || Proc.new { |c| busy? }
  loop_forever { break unless process(wait, &running) }
end
on (*servers)

Works as with, but for specific servers rather than groups. It will return a new subsession (Net::SSH::Multi::Subsession) consisting of the given servers. (Note that it requires that the servers in question have been created via calls to use on this session object, or things will not work quite right.) If a block is given, the new subsession will also be yielded to the block.

srv1 = session.use('host1', 'user')
srv2 = session.use('host2', 'user')
# ...
session.on(srv1, srv2).exec('hostname')
[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 392
def on(*servers)
  subsession = Subsession.new(self, servers)
  yield subsession if block_given?
  subsession
end
process (wait=nil, &block)

Run a single iteration of the aggregated event loop for all open server sessions. The wait parameter indicates how long to wait for an event to appear on any of the different sessions; nil (the default) means "wait forever". If the block is given, then it will be used to determine whether process returns true (the block did not return false), or false (the block returned false).

[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 426
def process(wait=nil, &block)
  realize_pending_connections!
  wait = @connect_threads.any? ? 0 : wait

  return false unless preprocess(&block)

  readers = server_list.map { |s| s.readers }.flatten
  writers = server_list.map { |s| s.writers }.flatten

  readers, writers, = IO.select(readers, writers, nil, wait)

  if readers
    return postprocess(readers, writers)
  else
    return true
  end
end
servers ()

Essentially an alias for servers_for without any arguments. This is used primarily to satistfy the expectations of the Net::SSH::Multi::SessionActions module.

[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 293
def servers
  servers_for
end
servers_for (*criteria)

Returns the set of servers that match the given criteria. It can be used in any (or all) of three ways.

First, you can omit any arguments. In this case, the full list of servers will be returned.

all = session.servers_for

Second, you can simply specify a list of group names. All servers in all named groups will be returned. If a server belongs to multiple matching groups, then it will appear only once in the list (the resulting list will contain only unique servers).

servers = session.servers_for(:app, :db)

Last, you can specify a hash with group names as keys, and property constraints as the values. These property constraints are either "only" constraints (which restrict the set of servers to "only" those that match the given properties) or "except" constraints (which restrict the set of servers to those whose properties do not match). Properties are described when the server is defined (via the :properties key):

session.group :db do
  session.use 'dbmain', 'user', :properties => { :primary => true }
  session.use 'dbslave', 'user2'
  session.use 'dbslve2', 'user2'
end
# return ONLY on the servers in the :db group which have the :primary
# property set to true.
primary = session.servers_for(:db => { :only => { :primary => true } })

You can, naturally, combine these methods:

# all servers in :app and :web, and all servers in :db with the
# :primary property set to true
servers = session.servers_for(:app, :web, :db => { :only => { :primary => true } })
[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 334
def servers_for(*criteria)
  if criteria.empty?
    server_list.flatten
  else
    # normalize the criteria list, so that every entry is a key to a
    # criteria hash (possibly empty).
    criteria = criteria.inject({}) do |hash, entry|
      case entry
      when Hash then hash.merge(entry)
      else hash.merge(entry => {})
      end
    end

    list = criteria.inject([]) do |aggregator, (group, properties)|
      raise ArgumentError, "the value for any group must be a Hash, but got a #{properties.class} for #{group.inspect}" unless properties.is_a?(Hash)
      bad_keys = properties.keys - [:only, :except]
      raise ArgumentError, "unknown constraint(s) #{bad_keys.inspect} for #{group.inspect}" unless bad_keys.empty?

      servers = groups[group].select do |server|
        (properties[:only] || {}).all? { |prop, value| server[prop] == value } &&
        !(properties[:except] || {}).any? { |prop, value| server[prop] == value }
      end

      aggregator.concat(servers)
    end

    list.uniq
  end
end
use (*hosts, &block)

Defines a new server definition, to be managed by this session. The server is at the given host, and will be connected to as the given user. The other options are passed as-is to the Net::SSH session constructor.

If a default gateway has been specified previously (with via) it will be passed to the new server definition. You can override this by passing a different Net::SSH::Gateway instance (or nil) with the :via key in the options.

session.use 'host'
session.use 'user@host2', :via => nil
session.use 'host3', :user => "user3", :via => Net::SSH::Gateway.new('gateway.host', 'user')

If only a single host is given, the new server instance is returned. You can give multiple hosts at a time, though, in which case an array of server instances will be returned.

server1, server2 = session.use "host1", "host2"

If given a block, this will save the block as a Net::SSH::Multi::DynamicServer definition, to be evaluated lazily the first time the server is needed. The block will recive any options hash given to use, and should return nil (if no servers are to be added), a String or an array of Strings (to be interpreted as a connection specification), or a Server or an array of Servers.

[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 274
def use(*hosts, &block)
  options = hosts.last.is_a?(Hash) ? hosts.pop : {}
  options = { :via => default_gateway }.merge(options)

  results = hosts.map do |host|
    server_list.add(Server.new(self, host, options))
  end

  if block
    results << server_list.add(DynamicServer.new(self, options, block))
  end

  group [] => results
  results.length > 1 ? results : results.first
end
via (host, user, options={})

Sets up a default gateway to use when establishing connections to servers. Note that any servers defined prior to this invocation will not use the default gateway; it only affects servers defined subsequently.

session.via 'gateway.host', 'user'

You may override the default gateway on a per-server basis by passing the :via key to the use method; see use for details.

[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 243
def via(host, user, options={})
  @default_gateway = Net::SSH::Gateway.new(host, user, options)
  self
end
with (*groups)

Returns a new Net::SSH::Multi::Subsession instance consisting of the servers that meet the given criteria. If a block is given, the subsession will be yielded to it. See servers_for for a discussion of how these criteria are interpreted.

session.with(:app).exec('hostname')
session.with(:app, :db => { :primary => true }) do |s|
  s.exec 'date'
  s.exec 'uptime'
end
[show source] 
# File lib/net/ssh/multi/session.rb, line 375
def with(*groups)
  subsession = Subsession.new(self, servers_for(*groups))
  yield subsession if block_given?
  subsession
end