4. piw-monitor

The piw-monitor application is used to monitor (and optionally control) the piw-master script. Upon startup it will request the status of all build slaves currently known to the master, and will then continually update its display as the slaves progress through builds. The controls at the bottom of the display allow the administrator to pause or resume the master script, kill build slaves that are having issues (e.g. excessive resource consumption from a huge build) or terminate the master itself.

4.1. Synopsis

piw-monitor [-h] [--version] [-c FILE] [--status-queue ADDR]
            [--control-queue ADDR]

4.2. Description

-h, --help

Show this help message and exit

--version

Show program’s version number and exit

-c FILE, --configuration FILE

Specify a configuration file to load

--status-queue ADDR

The address of the queue used to report status to monitors (default: ipc:///tmp/piw-status)

--control-queue ADDR

The address of the queue a monitor can use to control the master (default: ipc:///tmp/piw-control)

4.3. Usage

The monitor application should be started on the same machine as the master after the piw-master script has been started. After initialization it will request the current status of all build slaves from the master, displaying this in a list in the middle of the screen.

The Tab key can be used to navigate between the list of build slaves and the controls at the bottom of the screen. Mouse control is also supported, provided the terminal emulator supports it. Finally, hot-keys for all actions are available. The actions are as follows:

4.3.1. Pause

Hotkey: p

Pauses operations on the master. This causes Cloud Gazer to stop querying PyPI, Slave Driver to return “SLEEP” in response to any build slave requesting new packages, and so on. This is primarily a debugging tool to permit the developer to peek at the system in a more or less frozen state before resuming things.

4.3.2. Resume

Hotkey: r

Resumes operations on the master when paused.

4.3.3. Kill Slave

Hotkey: k

The next time the selected build slave requests a new package (with “IDLE”) the master will return “BYE” indicating the slave should terminate. Note that this cannot kill a slave in the middle of a build (that would require a more complex asynchronous protocol in Slave Driver), but is useful for shutting things down in an orderly fashion.

4.3.4. Terminate Master

Hotkey: t

Tells the master to shut itself down. In a future version, the master should request all build slaves to terminate as well, but currently this is unimplemented.

4.3.5. Quit

Hotkey: q

Terminate the monitor. Note that this won’t affect the master.