NAME

Sys::Prctl - Give access to prctl system call from Perl

DESCRIPTION

This is simple module that wraps the prctl system call. Currently only the PR_SET_NAME and PR_GET_NAME are implemented.

This can be use to change the process name as reported by "ps -A" and be killable will killall.

SYNOPSIS

  use Sys::Prctl(prctl_name);
  
  #
  # Use with functions
  # 

  # Process name is now "My long process name"
  my $oldname = prctl_name();
  prctl_name("My long process name");

  #
  # Use as an object
  #
  
  my $process = new Sys::Prctl();

  # Process name is now "Short name"
  my $oldname = $process->name();
  $process->name('Short name');

  #
  # Real world use
  #

  # instead of "perl helloworld.pl"
  $0 = "helloworld"
  prctl_name("helloworld");

  print "Hello World\n";
  sleep 100;

  # Process can now be killed with "killall helloworld"

METHODS

new()

Creates a new Sys::Prctl object.

name([$string])

Set or get the process name.

prctl_name([$string])

Set or get the process name.

$string can only be 15 chars long on Linux.

Returns undef on error.

prctl($option, $arg2, $arg3, $arg4, $arg5)

Direct wrapper for prctl call

NOTES

Currently only 32bit Linux has been tested. So test reports and patches are wellcome.

AUTHOR

Troels Liebe Bentsen <tlb@rapanden.dk>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright(C) 2005-2007 Troels Liebe Bentsen

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.