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1:mod:`resource` --- Resource usage information
2==============================================
3
4.. module:: resource
5   :platform: Unix
6   :synopsis: An interface to provide resource usage information on the current process.
7
8.. moduleauthor:: Jeremy Hylton <jeremy@alum.mit.edu>
9.. sectionauthor:: Jeremy Hylton <jeremy@alum.mit.edu>
10
11--------------
12
13This module provides basic mechanisms for measuring and controlling system
14resources utilized by a program.
15
16Symbolic constants are used to specify particular system resources and to
17request usage information about either the current process or its children.
18
19An :exc:`OSError` is raised on syscall failure.
20
21
22.. exception:: error
23
24   A deprecated alias of :exc:`OSError`.
25
26   .. versionchanged:: 3.3
27      Following :pep:`3151`, this class was made an alias of :exc:`OSError`.
28
29
30Resource Limits
31---------------
32
33Resources usage can be limited using the :func:`setrlimit` function described
34below. Each resource is controlled by a pair of limits: a soft limit and a hard
35limit. The soft limit is the current limit, and may be lowered or raised by a
36process over time. The soft limit can never exceed the hard limit. The hard
37limit can be lowered to any value greater than the soft limit, but not raised.
38(Only processes with the effective UID of the super-user can raise a hard
39limit.)
40
41The specific resources that can be limited are system dependent. They are
42described in the :manpage:`getrlimit(2)` man page.  The resources listed below
43are supported when the underlying operating system supports them; resources
44which cannot be checked or controlled by the operating system are not defined in
45this module for those platforms.
46
47
48.. data:: RLIM_INFINITY
49
50   Constant used to represent the limit for an unlimited resource.
51
52
53.. function:: getrlimit(resource)
54
55   Returns a tuple ``(soft, hard)`` with the current soft and hard limits of
56   *resource*. Raises :exc:`ValueError` if an invalid resource is specified, or
57   :exc:`error` if the underlying system call fails unexpectedly.
58
59
60.. function:: setrlimit(resource, limits)
61
62   Sets new limits of consumption of *resource*. The *limits* argument must be a
63   tuple ``(soft, hard)`` of two integers describing the new limits. A value of
64   :data:`~resource.RLIM_INFINITY` can be used to request a limit that is
65   unlimited.
66
67   Raises :exc:`ValueError` if an invalid resource is specified, if the new soft
68   limit exceeds the hard limit, or if a process tries to raise its hard limit.
69   Specifying a limit of :data:`~resource.RLIM_INFINITY` when the hard or
70   system limit for that resource is not unlimited will result in a
71   :exc:`ValueError`.  A process with the effective UID of super-user can
72   request any valid limit value, including unlimited, but :exc:`ValueError`
73   will still be raised if the requested limit exceeds the system imposed
74   limit.
75
76   ``setrlimit`` may also raise :exc:`error` if the underlying system call
77   fails.
78
79   VxWorks only supports setting :data:`RLIMIT_NOFILE`.
80
81.. function:: prlimit(pid, resource[, limits])
82
83   Combines :func:`setrlimit` and :func:`getrlimit` in one function and
84   supports to get and set the resources limits of an arbitrary process. If
85   *pid* is 0, then the call applies to the current process. *resource* and
86   *limits* have the same meaning as in :func:`setrlimit`, except that
87   *limits* is optional.
88
89   When *limits* is not given the function returns the *resource* limit of the
90   process *pid*. When *limits* is given the *resource* limit of the process is
91   set and the former resource limit is returned.
92
93   Raises :exc:`ProcessLookupError` when *pid* can't be found and
94   :exc:`PermissionError` when the user doesn't have ``CAP_SYS_RESOURCE`` for
95   the process.
96
97   .. availability:: Linux 2.6.36 or later with glibc 2.13 or later.
98
99   .. versionadded:: 3.4
100
101
102These symbols define resources whose consumption can be controlled using the
103:func:`setrlimit` and :func:`getrlimit` functions described below. The values of
104these symbols are exactly the constants used by C programs.
105
106The Unix man page for :manpage:`getrlimit(2)` lists the available resources.
107Note that not all systems use the same symbol or same value to denote the same
108resource.  This module does not attempt to mask platform differences --- symbols
109not defined for a platform will not be available from this module on that
110platform.
111
112
113.. data:: RLIMIT_CORE
114
115   The maximum size (in bytes) of a core file that the current process can create.
116   This may result in the creation of a partial core file if a larger core would be
117   required to contain the entire process image.
118
119
120.. data:: RLIMIT_CPU
121
122   The maximum amount of processor time (in seconds) that a process can use. If
123   this limit is exceeded, a :const:`SIGXCPU` signal is sent to the process. (See
124   the :mod:`signal` module documentation for information about how to catch this
125   signal and do something useful, e.g. flush open files to disk.)
126
127
128.. data:: RLIMIT_FSIZE
129
130   The maximum size of a file which the process may create.
131
132
133.. data:: RLIMIT_DATA
134
135   The maximum size (in bytes) of the process's heap.
136
137
138.. data:: RLIMIT_STACK
139
140   The maximum size (in bytes) of the call stack for the current process.  This only
141   affects the stack of the main thread in a multi-threaded process.
142
143
144.. data:: RLIMIT_RSS
145
146   The maximum resident set size that should be made available to the process.
147
148
149.. data:: RLIMIT_NPROC
150
151   The maximum number of processes the current process may create.
152
153
154.. data:: RLIMIT_NOFILE
155
156   The maximum number of open file descriptors for the current process.
157
158
159.. data:: RLIMIT_OFILE
160
161   The BSD name for :const:`RLIMIT_NOFILE`.
162
163
164.. data:: RLIMIT_MEMLOCK
165
166   The maximum address space which may be locked in memory.
167
168
169.. data:: RLIMIT_VMEM
170
171   The largest area of mapped memory which the process may occupy.
172
173
174.. data:: RLIMIT_AS
175
176   The maximum area (in bytes) of address space which may be taken by the process.
177
178
179.. data:: RLIMIT_MSGQUEUE
180
181   The number of bytes that can be allocated for POSIX message queues.
182
183   .. availability:: Linux 2.6.8 or later.
184
185   .. versionadded:: 3.4
186
187
188.. data:: RLIMIT_NICE
189
190   The ceiling for the process's nice level (calculated as 20 - rlim_cur).
191
192   .. availability:: Linux 2.6.12 or later.
193
194   .. versionadded:: 3.4
195
196
197.. data:: RLIMIT_RTPRIO
198
199   The ceiling of the real-time priority.
200
201   .. availability:: Linux 2.6.12 or later.
202
203   .. versionadded:: 3.4
204
205
206.. data:: RLIMIT_RTTIME
207
208   The time limit (in microseconds) on CPU time that a process can spend
209   under real-time scheduling without making a blocking syscall.
210
211   .. availability:: Linux 2.6.25 or later.
212
213   .. versionadded:: 3.4
214
215
216.. data:: RLIMIT_SIGPENDING
217
218   The number of signals which the process may queue.
219
220   .. availability:: Linux 2.6.8 or later.
221
222   .. versionadded:: 3.4
223
224.. data:: RLIMIT_SBSIZE
225
226   The maximum size (in bytes) of socket buffer usage for this user.
227   This limits the amount of network memory, and hence the amount of mbufs,
228   that this user may hold at any time.
229
230   .. availability:: FreeBSD 9 or later.
231
232   .. versionadded:: 3.4
233
234.. data:: RLIMIT_SWAP
235
236   The maximum size (in bytes) of the swap space that may be reserved or
237   used by all of this user id's processes.
238   This limit is enforced only if bit 1 of the vm.overcommit sysctl is set.
239   Please see :manpage:`tuning(7)` for a complete description of this sysctl.
240
241   .. availability:: FreeBSD 9 or later.
242
243   .. versionadded:: 3.4
244
245.. data:: RLIMIT_NPTS
246
247   The maximum number of pseudo-terminals created by this user id.
248
249   .. availability:: FreeBSD 9 or later.
250
251   .. versionadded:: 3.4
252
253Resource Usage
254--------------
255
256These functions are used to retrieve resource usage information:
257
258
259.. function:: getrusage(who)
260
261   This function returns an object that describes the resources consumed by either
262   the current process or its children, as specified by the *who* parameter.  The
263   *who* parameter should be specified using one of the :const:`RUSAGE_\*`
264   constants described below.
265
266   A simple example::
267
268      from resource import *
269      import time
270
271      # a non CPU-bound task
272      time.sleep(3)
273      print(getrusage(RUSAGE_SELF))
274
275      # a CPU-bound task
276      for i in range(10 ** 8):
277         _ = 1 + 1
278      print(getrusage(RUSAGE_SELF))
279
280   The fields of the return value each describe how a particular system resource
281   has been used, e.g. amount of time spent running is user mode or number of times
282   the process was swapped out of main memory. Some values are dependent on the
283   clock tick internal, e.g. the amount of memory the process is using.
284
285   For backward compatibility, the return value is also accessible as a tuple of 16
286   elements.
287
288   The fields :attr:`ru_utime` and :attr:`ru_stime` of the return value are
289   floating point values representing the amount of time spent executing in user
290   mode and the amount of time spent executing in system mode, respectively. The
291   remaining values are integers. Consult the :manpage:`getrusage(2)` man page for
292   detailed information about these values. A brief summary is presented here:
293
294   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
295   | Index  | Field               | Resource                              |
296   +========+=====================+=======================================+
297   | ``0``  | :attr:`ru_utime`    | time in user mode (float seconds)     |
298   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
299   | ``1``  | :attr:`ru_stime`    | time in system mode (float seconds)   |
300   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
301   | ``2``  | :attr:`ru_maxrss`   | maximum resident set size             |
302   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
303   | ``3``  | :attr:`ru_ixrss`    | shared memory size                    |
304   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
305   | ``4``  | :attr:`ru_idrss`    | unshared memory size                  |
306   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
307   | ``5``  | :attr:`ru_isrss`    | unshared stack size                   |
308   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
309   | ``6``  | :attr:`ru_minflt`   | page faults not requiring I/O         |
310   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
311   | ``7``  | :attr:`ru_majflt`   | page faults requiring I/O             |
312   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
313   | ``8``  | :attr:`ru_nswap`    | number of swap outs                   |
314   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
315   | ``9``  | :attr:`ru_inblock`  | block input operations                |
316   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
317   | ``10`` | :attr:`ru_oublock`  | block output operations               |
318   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
319   | ``11`` | :attr:`ru_msgsnd`   | messages sent                         |
320   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
321   | ``12`` | :attr:`ru_msgrcv`   | messages received                     |
322   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
323   | ``13`` | :attr:`ru_nsignals` | signals received                      |
324   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
325   | ``14`` | :attr:`ru_nvcsw`    | voluntary context switches            |
326   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
327   | ``15`` | :attr:`ru_nivcsw`   | involuntary context switches          |
328   +--------+---------------------+---------------------------------------+
329
330   This function will raise a :exc:`ValueError` if an invalid *who* parameter is
331   specified. It may also raise :exc:`error` exception in unusual circumstances.
332
333
334.. function:: getpagesize()
335
336   Returns the number of bytes in a system page. (This need not be the same as the
337   hardware page size.)
338
339The following :const:`RUSAGE_\*` symbols are passed to the :func:`getrusage`
340function to specify which processes information should be provided for.
341
342
343.. data:: RUSAGE_SELF
344
345   Pass to :func:`getrusage` to request resources consumed by the calling
346   process, which is the sum of resources used by all threads in the process.
347
348
349.. data:: RUSAGE_CHILDREN
350
351   Pass to :func:`getrusage` to request resources consumed by child processes
352   of the calling process which have been terminated and waited for.
353
354
355.. data:: RUSAGE_BOTH
356
357   Pass to :func:`getrusage` to request resources consumed by both the current
358   process and child processes.  May not be available on all systems.
359
360
361.. data:: RUSAGE_THREAD
362
363   Pass to :func:`getrusage` to request resources consumed by the current
364   thread.  May not be available on all systems.
365
366   .. versionadded:: 3.2
367