Tinies_rebuilt

Everything has been rebuilt from source including the latest busybox, kernel 6.6.6 etc. etc lxc version 4.0.2 has been compiled to have small binaries

The name of the tinies has changed:

  • tinyPQ –> tinyQ
  • tinyzfs –> tinyZ
  • tinyCLQ –> tinyO
  • tinyNR –> tinyN
  • tinyP –> No changes

Changelog here:

Changelog

The tinies can be downloaded here:

tinies

max

mintrac: anatomy of a simple C webserver

This project was a way for me to learn more about socket programming and to practice other (relatively) low-level backend stuff (a fair bit of hand-written code for deserialisation, validation, parsing, etc…). It’s really two servers in one binary:

  • receiver: receives positional data via HTTP, my use case is to record trips via mobile applications like OsmAnd.
  • webapp: a web application that displays the positional data on a map, the frontend is vanilla JS using the Leaflet.js library.

Both servers use event loops, and we use libev to help with this. For the database, we use sqlite3.

Let’s start with main():

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	process_args(argc, argv);

	// default to applying start/stop to both webapp and receiver
	if (!RUN_TARGET) RUN_TARGET = BOTH;

	switch (RUN_MODE) {
	case INIT:
		mintrac_init();
		break;

	case START:
		if (mintrac_start() != MINTRAC_OK)
			return EXIT_FAILURE;
		break;

	case STOP:
		if (RUN_TARGET & WEBAPP)
			mintrac_term(WEBAPP_PIDFILE_PATH, "webapp");

		if (RUN_TARGET & RECEIVER)
			mintrac_term(RECEIVER_PIDFILE_PATH, "receiver");
		break;

	default:
		printf("%s", usage);
		return EXIT_FAILURE;
	}

	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

process_args() sets some global flags, among which is RUN_MODE, it can be INIT, START or STOP. INIT is just a first-time setup (creates the database). STOP sends a TERM signal to the process(es) running START, which cleans up and exits. Let’s look at START.

NB: I have left most error checking and logging in these snippets. die(), log_msg() and debug() are logging macros(die() logs and exits).

Flags set from the command line control whether the receiver, the webapp or both are started. The default is to start both, which is the most interesting case:

pid_t child = fork();
if (child < 0) die("[ERROR] failed to fork()!\n");

if (child) {
	if (sigaction(SIGINT, &webapp_sigact, NULL) < 0)
		die("[ERROR] webapp: failed to install SIGINT handler\n");

	if (mintrac_webapp_run() != MINTRAC_OK)
		return MINTRAC_ERR;
} else {
	if (sigaction(SIGINT, &receiver_sigact, NULL) < 0)
		die("[ERROR] receiver: failed to install SIGINT handler\n");

	if (mintrac_receiver_run() != MINTRAC_OK)
		return MINTRAC_ERR;
}

Since there is no data shared directly between the receiver and the webapp, we fork and run the webapp in the child process. This way if the webapp crashes, the receiver stays live, which is important since a receiver crash might mean a trip not getting recorded - clients usually do some form of caching and/or local recording, but still…

At this point we also want to handle SIGINT, so that we can exit gracefully from here on out. The callbacks simply call the appropriate termination command, they look something like this: (the webapp version is the same, just 's/receiver/webapp/'):

static void receiver_handle_sigint(int signo, siginfo_t *info, void *context)
{
	...
	mintrac_term(RECEIVER_PIDFILE_PATH, "receiver");
}

mintrac_term() is the main STOP function, it finds the pid of the process(es) running START from a .pid file and sends them a TERM signal.

The next step in startup are the _run functions (again, the webapp version is very similar):

int mintrac_receiver_run(void)
{
	pid_t pid = getpid();
	if (pidfile_create(RECEIVER_PIDFILE_PATH, pid, "receiver") != MINTRAC_OK)
		return MINTRAC_ERR;

	struct server *receiver = server_create("receiver", RECEIVER_PORT,
			RECEIVER_BUFFER_SIZE, RECEIVER_BACKLOG, RECEIVER_TIMEOUT);

	if (!receiver) {
		log_msg("[ERROR] receiver: failed to start\n");
		if (remove(RECEIVER_PIDFILE_PATH) < 0) {
			log_msg("[ERROR] receiver: failed to delete file (%s): %s\n",
			         RECEIVER_PIDFILE_PATH, strerror(errno));
		}
		return MINTRAC_ERR;
	}
	log_msg("[INFO] receiver: running on port %s\n", RECEIVER_PORT);

	server_start_accept_loop(receiver, receiver_connection_cb);

	free(receiver);
	return MINTRAC_OK;
}

First, we create the pidfile mintrac_term() looks for, we then instantiate a server with some parameters and start the main event loop. For reference, here is the server struct:

struct server {
	ev_io accept_watcher;
	const char *name; // for logging
	const char *port;
	struct ev_loop *accept_loop;
	struct connection *conns;
	void (*conn_cb)(struct ev_loop *loop, ev_io *evio_conn, int revents);
	size_t conn_buf_size;
	int fd, backlog;
	ev_tstamp timeout;
};

This is server creation:

struct server *server_create(const char *name, const char *port,
		size_t conn_buf_size, int backlog, ev_tstamp timeout)
{
	assert(name && port && conn_buf_size && backlog && timeout);
	struct server *srv = malloc(sizeof(*srv));

	if (!srv) return NULL;

	srv->name = name;
	srv->port = port;
	srv->backlog = backlog;
	srv->timeout = timeout;
	srv->conn_buf_size = conn_buf_size;

	struct addrinfo hints, *gai_result, *res;

	memset(&hints, 0, sizeof(hints));
	hints.ai_family    = AF_UNSPEC;   // IPV4 or IPV6
	hints.ai_socktype  = SOCK_STREAM; // TCP
	hints.ai_flags     = AI_PASSIVE;  // wildcard IP address
	hints.ai_protocol  = 0;           // any
	hints.ai_canonname = NULL;
	hints.ai_addr      = NULL;
	hints.ai_next      = NULL;

	int ret = getaddrinfo(NULL, port, &hints, &gai_result);
	if (ret != 0) {
		log_msg("[ERROR] %s: %s\n", name, gai_strerror(ret));
		return NULL;
	}

	for (res = gai_result; res; res = res->ai_next) {
		if ((srv->fd = socket(res->ai_family, res->ai_socktype, res->ai_protocol)) < 0)
			continue; // try next address
		
		// setsockopt(srv->fd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, &on, sizeof(on))

		if (bind(srv->fd, res->ai_addr, res->ai_addrlen) == 0)
			break;

		// failed bind: close socket and try next addr
		close(srv->fd);
	}
	freeaddrinfo(gai_result);

	// No address succeeded
	if (!res) {
		log_msg("[ERROR] %s: could not bind()\n", name);
		return NULL;
	}
	if (listen(srv->fd, backlog) != 0) {
		log_msg("[ERROR] %s: failed to listen() on socket: %s\n", name, strerror(errno));
		return NULL;
	}
	return srv;
}

For more detail on this section especially, see Beej’s Guide to Network Programming for a great guide on internet socket programming, here’s the short version:

  • We allocate our server structure and initialise it with the parameters we passed in.
  • We fill out a struct with some information to pass to getaddrinfo(), which will perform domain name translation: we pass it a host name (or string representing an IP address) and port (as a string) or service name (“http”, “ftp”, “ssh”, …) and it returns a linked list of struct addrinfos containing information on addresses matching our specifications.
  • We traverse the linked list, trying for each address to create a socket (socket()) and assign it a name (bind()). The setsockopt() is useful for testing and when the server might crash, more details in man pages and Beej’s Guide
  • When we manage to bind(), or we run out of addresses, we break the loop and free the heap allocated linked list. If we did manage to bind(), we now start to listen() for connections on the socket and return our initialised server.

So now we have our server, back to the caller:

int mintrac_receiver_run(void)
{
	pid_t pid = getpid();
	if (pidfile_create(RECEIVER_PIDFILE_PATH, pid, "receiver") != MINTRAC_OK)
		return MINTRAC_ERR;

	struct server *receiver = server_create("receiver", RECEIVER_PORT,
			RECEIVER_BUFFER_SIZE, RECEIVER_BACKLOG, RECEIVER_TIMEOUT);

	if (!receiver) {
		log_msg("[ERROR] receiver: failed to start\n");
		if (remove(RECEIVER_PIDFILE_PATH) < 0) {
			log_msg("[ERROR] receiver: failed to delete file (%s): %s\n",
			         RECEIVER_PIDFILE_PATH, strerror(errno));
		}
		return MINTRAC_ERR;
	}
	log_msg("[INFO] receiver: running on port %s\n", RECEIVER_PORT);

	server_start_accept_loop(receiver, receiver_connection_cb);

	free(receiver);
	return MINTRAC_OK;
}

We check for failure (in which case we delete the pidfile and exit) and log the result. server_start_accept_loop() will start our first event loop (for more info on libev see the great documentation). We pass it our server instance and a callback function, which we will look at in a moment. Note that we will keep polling for events indefinitely, so when we free() our server instance and return, it means we have received a termination signal and are shutting down.

void server_start_accept_loop(struct server *srv, void (*conn_cb)(struct ev_loop *, ev_io *, int))
{
	srv->accept_loop = EV_DEFAULT;
	srv->conn_cb = conn_cb;

	ev_signal sigterm_watcher;
	ev_signal_init(&sigterm_watcher, sigterm_cb, SIGTERM);
	ev_signal_start(srv->accept_loop, &sigterm_watcher);

	ev_io_init(&(srv->accept_watcher), server_accept_cb, srv->fd, EV_READ);
	ev_io_start(srv->accept_loop, &(srv->accept_watcher));
	ev_run(srv->accept_loop, 0);

	log_msg("[INFO] %s: received SIGTERM, exiting\n", srv->name);
}

We have libev create an instance of its default event loop and store a pointer to it in our struct server, we also store the callback we passed in. We set up a couple of watchers and associate them with our event loop:

  • one to poll for TERM signals, which is our cue to stop accept()ing connections (break the event loop).
  • the main one triggers our server_accept_cb callback when we can read from our server’s file descriptor.

We then start the event loop (note that again we only return on termination).

The termination callback simply breaks the loop:

static void sigterm_cb(EV_P_ ev_signal *sig, int events_received)
{
	ev_break(EV_A_ EVBREAK_ALL);
}

The accept() is more interesting:

static void server_accept_cb(EV_P_ ev_io *watcher, int events_received)
{
	int cfd = -1;
	struct sockaddr_storage caddr;
	socklen_t caddr_len = sizeof(caddr);

	struct server *srv = (struct server *)watcher;

	if ((cfd = accept(srv->fd, (struct sockaddr *)&caddr, &caddr_len)) < 0) {
		log_msg("[ERROR] %s: failed to accept()\n", srv->name);
		goto err;
	}
	debug("%s: got client\n", srv->name);
	
	struct connection conn;
	conn.loop = EV_DEFAULT;
	conn.fd = cfd;
	conn.buf_size = srv->conn_buf_size;
	conn.buf = malloc(conn.buf_size);
	if (!(conn.buf = malloc(conn.buf_size))) {
		log_msg("[ERROR] %s: failed to allocate memory for main connection buffer\n", srv->name);
		goto err;
	}
	ev_timer_init(&conn.timer, timeout_cb, 0., srv->timeout);
	ev_timer_again(conn.loop, &conn.timer);

	ev_io_init(&conn.watcher, srv->conn_cb, cfd, EV_READ);
	ev_io_start(conn.loop, &conn.watcher);
	ev_run(conn.loop, 0);

	ev_io_stop(conn.loop, &conn.watcher);
	ev_timer_stop(conn.loop, &conn.timer);

	close(cfd);
	free(conn.buf);
	return;

err:
	if (cfd > -1) close(cfd);
	if (conn.buf) free(conn.buf);
	return;
}

One of the first things we do is get our struct server * back, we can simply cast the ev_io * since it points to the first member of the struct, and therefore to the struct itself:

struct server {
	ev_io accept_watcher;
	...
};

Next we try to accept() a connection on the server’s socket. On success we initialise a struct connection, which will hold the newly acquired connected socket file descriptor and data related to the handling of requests and responses associated with it. Here is the struct:

struct connection {
	ev_io watcher;
	ev_timer timer;
	struct ev_loop *loop;
	char *buf;
	size_t buf_size;
	int fd;
};

The watcher is responsible for telling us when we can do IO on the connected socket. The timer is responsible for handling connection timeouts: we start a countdown when we run our connection event loop and reset it (ev_timer_again()) whenever we read from or write to the socket. loop is the event loop that the watcher and timer operate within; the buffer will hold the raw bytes from each client request; finally we have the file descriptor referring to the connected socket.

After initialising our connection struct, we set our timer and IO watcher and run the event loop.

The timeout callback is like the termination signal callback before, it just stops the event loop, although note that in this case we use EVBREAK_ONE to break out of only the innermost (connection) loop, not the server’s accept() loop:

static void timeout_cb(EV_P_ ev_timer *timer, int events_received)
{
	...
	ev_break(EV_A_ EVBREAK_ONE);
}

The connection callback is held by the server struct, and is set at initialisation, this of course differs a fair bit between webapp and receiver, here is what we do in the receiver:

static void receiver_connection_cb(struct ev_loop *loop, ev_io *watcher, int events_received)
{
	struct connection *conn = (struct connection *)watcher;
	struct http_request req;

	int res = http_populate_request(conn, &req, "receiver");
	if (res == MINTRAC_DONE || res == MINTRAC_ERR) return;

	struct datapoint dp;
	if (datapoint_deserialise(&dp, req.query, req.query_len) != MINTRAC_OK) {
		log_msg("[WARN] receiver: ignoring invalid datapoint\n");
		return;
	}
	if (DEBUG_MODE) {
		char dpstring[2048]; // big arbitrary size, guaranteed to be big enough
		debug("receiver: got datapoint:\n%s\n", datapoint_tostring(&dp, dpstring));
	}
	if (db_add_datapoint(&dp) != MINTRAC_OK)
		log_msg("[ERROR] receiver: failed to save datapoint to database\n");
}

First we use the same trick as we did with the server to get our struct connection * back from the ev_io *. We then try to read data from our connected socket, validate and parse the http request.

A valid request will include the positional data we are looking for: latitude and longitude, a timestamp, a username and some optional nice-to-have information, dilution of precision, device battery level, etc.

datapoint_deserialise() takes care of validating the data and uses it to construct an instance of our internal representation (struct datapoint), we then save the data point to the database (db_add_datapoint()).

This callback is the heart of the server, and for each connected client we will either be waiting to be able to read a request or be in here, acting on it. Once we are done (client disconnects or we timeout), we stop the event loop and clean up:

static void server_accept_cb(EV_P_ ev_io *watcher, int events_received)
{
	...
	ev_io_stop(conn.loop, &conn.watcher);
	ev_timer_stop(conn.loop, &conn.timer);

	close(cfd);
	free(conn.buf);
	return;
	...
}

Glen

tinies and vmstart (vmo) update

Big update for the tinies and vmstart (now vmo).

vmo

The vmo script (previously vmstart) that can create and manage a cluster of VMs has been deeply revised. We have both closed bugs, refactored existing code and added new features, including the ability to add an existing qcow2 disk or to completely delete all left-over disks. Here is the new full help page:

EXTENDED HELP

The script launches a set of VMs connected to a bridge.
All the VMs have a static IP and a common gateway.
The number of VMs will be requested by the script.

A full path to the directory containining the base image/s should be provided,
either with vmo --path or by setting the PER variable in the VARIABLES section of the script.

Other variables that can be changed in the VARIABLES section of the script:
- IP: IP class
- GW1: gateway
- MEM: initial memory assigned to each VM
- CPU: number of CPUs assigned to each VM
- ROOTPASS: VMs root password
- DELAY: delay between the start of each VM
- SSHA: root SSH public key to connect to the VMs without password


USAGE

--path or -p:   First thing to do: sets/resets the full path to directory containing base image/s that you want to use for this project
--start or -s:  Start the VMs
--kill or -k:   Kill all running VMs (can also use --off or --stop)
--del or -dl:   Delete the VMs disks (such as vmX.qcow2, diskX_vmX.qcow2 - preserves pdisks)
--check or -c:  Check hostname/IP of each VM
--vsock or -v:  Execute commands on the VMs with vsock
--nic or -n:    Add a NIC to a VM
--cpu or -cpu:  Hotplug a CPU
--mem or -mem:  Hotplug RAM
--disk or -d:   Hotplug disks
--att or -a:    Hotplug an existing qcow2 disk. the disk name should start with 'pdisk'
--usb or -u:    Attach a USB device
--migr or -mg:  Migrate VMs between nodes
--data or -db:  Check the nodes/VMs database
--img or -i:    Create an image of the running VM
--cmd or -cm:   Read a list of commands from a .cmd file and pass them to a VM
--help or -h:   Display basic help page
--help-full:    Display extended help page (can also use -H)


The script can be executed multiple times:
The number of running VMs will be displayed and another set of VMs can be launched.
The new set will be connected to the common bridge.

To check the running VMs:
	vmo --check

To check the VMs with vsock, run vmo -v and insert:
	echo '------------------------------'; uname -n; ip a | grep eth0

To access the VMs with vsock:
	vsock_cli <cid> 1961

where <cid> == VM number + 2 (for VM2 the command would be vsock_cli 4 1961)

To access the VMs with SSH:
	sshe vm_IP

Tinies

  • Added standalone fallocate because BusyBox’s version cannot dig holes.
  • qemu is now version 7.0
  • BusyBox has been recompiled from the latest Git version
  • zfs-2.1.5-1 / zfs-kmod-2.1.99-1332_gd22dd77c4
  • sqlite3 3.39.2
  • ssh OpenSSH_9.0p1, OpenSSL 1.1.1q
  • last ksmbd support kernel and userspace
  • Kernel updated to the latest version: 5.19.8

To use the tiny linux images without the vmo script, the password is: m1cr0l1nux

Glen

Our Tiny Linux

I built some very small linux systems that I use to create virtual clusters in seconds. All the software has been compiled from source against the MUSL library and despite the small size they provide many features, tinyzfs for example is only 28MB but has:

QEMU, LXC, ZFS, http/s, vde2, wpa_supplicant, ddrescue, lynx, mdadm, iperf3, nfs, parted, stress, ntfs3, ksmbd, sysstats, etc. etc

Here is a screencast with migration between metal nodes: My Tiny Linux.

Get the Tiny Linux here

Last update on 07/10/2022 - kernel 6.0.0 - changelog

max

Testing Kernel 5.15

The kernel 5.15 is out and has many new features and improvements.

The new kernel has already implemented on the my tinylinux: changelog.

I have tested the new ntfs driver ( NTFS3 ) and the SMB3 server support ( ksmbd ), the ksmbd userspace tools have been added to the tinylinux.

ksmbd quick test. ( KSMBD screencast )

Start a VM with vmstart, here a screencast that shows how to start a VM screencast

  • Enter the VM: sshe 10.0.3.1
  • Load the ksmb module: modprobe ksmbd
  • Create the configuration directory: mkdir /etc/ksmbd
  • Add a share “on the fly”: ksmbd.addshare -a myshare -o "guest ok = yes, writable = yes, path = /usr/share/doc"
  • Start ksmbd user space daemon: ksmbd.mountd

Now the share can be mounted or accessed from the host, e.g:

smbclient //10.0.3.1/myshare

Enter WORKGROUP\root's password: 
Anonymous login successful
Try "help" to get a list of possible commands.

smb: >ls

 .                                   D        0  Sun May  2 11:56:40 2021
  ..                                  D        0  Sun May  2 11:56:40 2021
  strace.txt                          A      860  Fri May 18 21:50:35 2018
  ddrescue_passes.txt                 A     1656  Sat Apr  2 20:33:59 2016
  README                              A      387  Mon Oct 12 11:15:32 2020
  screen.txt                          A     1699  Sat Apr  2 20:33:59 2016
  sysstat.txt                         A     2938  Fri May 18 21:51:28 2018
  socat.txt                           A     4245  Fri May 18 21:33:14 2018
  tmux_cheat_sheet.html               A    26518  Mon Oct 21 18:08:11 2019
  ncat.txt                            A     1187  Fri May 18 21:13:01 2018
  iproute2.txt                        A     1818  Fri May 18 21:45:01 2018
  vmstart2.txt                        A     1483  Wed Oct  2 12:04:47 2019
  qemu.txt                            A    13278  Fri May 18 21:40:55 2018
  ssh_reverse_tunnel.txt              A      314  Tue Nov 21 21:49:54 2017

		50401 blocks of size 4096. 29053 blocks available

NTFS3 quick test

  • Connecting the monitor interface to check the block devices already connected:

echo "info block" | ncat -U /tmp/mon.1

QEMU 5.2.0 monitor - type 'help' for more information
(qemu) info block
virtio0 (#block181): /media/sdb2/vcluster/vm1.qcow2 (qcow2)
    Attached to:      /machine/peripheral-anon/device[1]/virtio-backend
    Cache mode:       writeback
    Backing file:     /media/sdb2/vcluster/tinyzfs.img (chain depth: 1)

ide1-cd0: [not inserted]
    Attached to:      /machine/unattached/device[23]
    Removable device: not locked, tray closed

floppy0: [not inserted]
    Attached to:      /machine/unattached/device[17]
    Removable device: not locked, tray closed

sd0: [not inserted]
    Removable device: not locked, tray closed
  • Now I add the sdb1 partition that contains window 10 ( I use only for testing and doesn’t contain any important data )

echo "drive_add 1 if=none,file=/dev/sdb1,format=raw,id=disk1" | ncat -U /tmp/mon.1

OK

echo "device_add virtio-blk-pci,drive=disk1,id=myvirtio1" | ncat -U /tmp/mon.1

echo "info block" | ncat -U /tmp/mon.1

virtio0 (#block193): /media/sdb2/vcluster/vm1.qcow2 (qcow2)
    Attached to:      /machine/peripheral-anon/device[1]/virtio-backend
    Cache mode:       writeback
    Backing file:     /media/sdb2/vcluster/tinyzfs.img (chain depth: 1)

ide1-cd0: [not inserted]
    Attached to:      /machine/unattached/device[23]
    Removable device: not locked, tray closed

floppy0: [not inserted]
    Attached to:      /machine/unattached/device[17]
    Removable device: not locked, tray closed

sd0: [not inserted]
    Removable device: not locked, tray closed

disk1 (#block562): /dev/sdb1 (raw)
    Attached to:      /machine/peripheral/myvirtio1/virtio-backend
    Cache mode:       writeback
  • Back to the VM: sshe 10.0.3.1

root@vm1:~#parted /dev/vdb p

Model: Virtio Block Device (virtblk)
Disk /dev/vdb: 227GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: loop
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start  End    Size   File system  Flags
 1      0.00B  227GB  227GB  ntfs

root@vm1:~#mount -t ntfs3 /dev/vdb /media/test

root@vm1:~#grep ntfs /proc/mounts

/dev/vdb /media/test ntfs3 rw,relatime,uid=0,gid=0,iocharset=utf8 0 0

  • Creating a 300MB file:

root@vm1:~#dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/test/deleteme bs=1M count=300 status=progress

300+0 records in
300+0 records out
314572800 bytes (315 MB, 300 MiB) copied, 0.812832 s, 387 MB/s

Soon a screencast that shows this process

max