Graceful Shutdown and Cleanup
The code in Listing 20-20 is responding to requests asynchronously through the
use of a thread pool, as we intended. We get some warnings about the workers,
id, and thread fields that we’re not using in a direct way that reminds us
we’re not cleaning up anything. When we use the less elegant ctrl-c method to halt the main thread, all other
threads are stopped immediately as well, even if they’re in the middle of
serving a request.
Next, then, we’ll implement the Drop trait to call join on each of the
threads in the pool so they can finish the requests they’re working on before
closing. Then we’ll implement a way to tell the threads they should stop
accepting new requests and shut down. To see this code in action, we’ll modify
our server to accept only two requests before gracefully shutting down its
thread pool.
Implementing the Drop Trait on ThreadPool
Let’s start with implementing Drop on our thread pool. When the pool is
dropped, our threads should all join to make sure they finish their work.
Listing 20-22 shows a first attempt at a Drop implementation; this code won’t
quite work yet.
Filename: src/lib.rs
use std::{
sync::{mpsc, Arc, Mutex},
thread,
};
pub struct ThreadPool {
workers: Vec<Worker>,
sender: mpsc::Sender<Job>,
}
type Job = Box<dyn FnOnce() + Send + 'static>;
impl ThreadPool {
/// Create a new ThreadPool.
///
/// The size is the number of threads in the pool.
///
/// # Panics
///
/// The `new` function will panic if the size is zero.
pub fn new(size: usize) -> ThreadPool {
assert!(size > 0);
let (sender, receiver) = mpsc::channel();
let receiver = Arc::new(Mutex::new(receiver));
let mut workers = Vec::with_capacity(size);
for id in 0..size {
workers.push(Worker::new(id, Arc::clone(&receiver)));
}
ThreadPool { workers, sender }
}
pub fn execute<F>(&self, f: F)
where
F: FnOnce() + Send + 'static,
{
let job = Box::new(f);
self.sender.send(job).unwrap();
}
}
impl Drop for ThreadPool {
fn drop(&mut self) {
for worker in &mut self.workers {
println!("Shutting down worker {}", worker.id);
worker.thread.join().unwrap();
}
}
}
struct Worker {
id: usize,
thread: thread::JoinHandle<()>,
}
impl Worker {
fn new(id: usize, receiver: Arc<Mutex<mpsc::Receiver<Job>>>) -> Worker {
let thread = thread::spawn(move || loop {
let job = receiver.lock().unwrap().recv().unwrap();
println!("Worker {id} got a job; executing.");
job();
});
Worker { id, thread }
}
}
Listing 20-22: Joining each thread when the thread pool goes out of scope
First, we loop through each of the thread pool workers. We use &mut for
this because self is a mutable reference, and we also need to be able to
mutate worker. For each worker, we print a message saying that this
particular worker is shutting down, and then we call join on that worker’s
thread. If the call to join fails, we use unwrap to make Rust panic and go
into an ungraceful shutdown.
Here is the error we get when we compile this code:
$ cargo check
Checking hello v0.1.0 (file:///projects/hello)
error[E0507]: cannot move out of `worker.thread` which is behind a mutable reference
--> src/lib.rs:52:13
|
52 | worker.thread.join().unwrap();
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------ `worker.thread` moved due to this method call
| |
| move occurs because `worker.thread` has type `JoinHandle<()>`, which does not implement the `Copy` trait
|
note: this function takes ownership of the receiver `self`, which moves `worker.thread`
For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0507`.
error: could not compile `hello` due to previous error
The error tells us we can’t call join because we only have a mutable borrow
of each worker and join takes ownership of its argument. To solve this
issue, we need to move the thread out of the Worker instance that owns
thread so join can consume the thread. We did this in Listing 17-15: if
Worker holds an Option<thread::JoinHandle<()>> instead, we can call the
take method on the Option to move the value out of the Some variant and
leave a None variant in its place. In other words, a Worker that is running
will have a Some variant in thread, and when we want to clean up a
Worker, we’ll replace Some with None so the Worker doesn’t have a
thread to run.
So we know we want to update the definition of Worker like this:
Filename: src/lib.rs
use std::{
sync::{mpsc, Arc, Mutex},
thread,
};
pub struct ThreadPool {
workers: Vec<Worker>,
sender: mpsc::Sender<Job>,
}
type Job = Box<dyn FnOnce() + Send + 'static>;
impl ThreadPool {
/// Create a new ThreadPool.
///
/// The size is the number of threads in the pool.
///
/// # Panics
///
/// The `new` function will panic if the size is zero.
pub fn new(size: usize) -> ThreadPool {
assert!(size > 0);
let (sender, receiver) = mpsc::channel();
let receiver = Arc::new(Mutex::new(receiver));
let mut workers = Vec::with_capacity(size);
for id in 0..size {
workers.push(Worker::new(id, Arc::clone(&receiver)));
}
ThreadPool { workers, sender }
}
pub fn execute<F>(&self, f: F)
where
F: FnOnce() + Send + 'static,
{
let job = Box::new(f);
self.sender.send(job).unwrap();
}
}
impl Drop for ThreadPool {
fn drop(&mut self) {
for worker in &mut self.workers {
println!("Shutting down worker {}", worker.id);
worker.thread.join().unwrap();
}
}
}
struct Worker {
id: usize,
thread: Option<thread::JoinHandle<()>>,
}
impl Worker {
fn new(id: usize, receiver: Arc<Mutex<mpsc::Receiver<Job>>>) -> Worker {
let thread = thread::spawn(move || loop {
let job = receiver.lock().unwrap().recv().unwrap();
println!("Worker {id} got a job; executing.");
job();
});
Worker { id, thread }
}
}
Now let’s lean on the compiler to find the other places that need to change. Checking this code, we get two errors:
$ cargo check
Checking hello v0.1.0 (file:///projects/hello)
error[E0599]: no method named `join` found for enum `Option` in the current scope
--> src/lib.rs:52:27
|
52 | worker.thread.join().unwrap();
| ^^^^ method not found in `Option<JoinHandle<()>>`
error[E0308]: mismatched types
--> src/lib.rs:72:22
|
72 | Worker { id, thread }
| ^^^^^^ expected enum `Option`, found struct `JoinHandle`
|
= note: expected enum `Option<JoinHandle<()>>`
found struct `JoinHandle<_>`
help: try wrapping the expression in `Some`
|
72 | Worker { id, thread: Some(thread) }
| +++++++++++++ +
Some errors have detailed explanations: E0308, E0599.
For more information about an error, try `rustc --explain E0308`.
error: could not compile `hello` due to 2 previous errors
Let’s address the second error, which points to the code at the end of
Worker::new; we need to wrap the thread value in Some when we create a
new Worker. Make the following changes to fix this error:
Filename: src/lib.rs
use std::{
sync::{mpsc, Arc, Mutex},
thread,
};
pub struct ThreadPool {
workers: Vec<Worker>,
sender: mpsc::Sender<Job>,
}
type Job = Box<dyn FnOnce() + Send + 'static>;
impl ThreadPool {
/// Create a new ThreadPool.
///
/// The size is the number of threads in the pool.
///
/// # Panics
///
/// The `new` function will panic if the size is zero.
pub fn new(size: usize) -> ThreadPool {
assert!(size > 0);
let (sender, receiver) = mpsc::channel();
let receiver = Arc::new(Mutex::new(receiver));
let mut workers = Vec::with_capacity(size);
for id in 0..size {
workers.push(Worker::new(id, Arc::clone(&receiver)));
}
ThreadPool { workers, sender }
}
pub fn execute<F>(&self, f: F)
where
F: FnOnce() + Send + 'static,
{
let job = Box::new(f);
self.sender.send(job).unwrap();
}
}
impl Drop for ThreadPool {
fn drop(&mut self) {
for worker in &mut self.workers {
println!("Shutting down worker {}", worker.id);
worker.thread.join().unwrap();
}
}
}
struct Worker {
id: usize,
thread: Option<thread::JoinHandle<()>>,
}
impl Worker {
fn new(id: usize, receiver: Arc<Mutex<mpsc::Receiver<Job>>>) -> Worker {
// --snip--
let thread = thread::spawn(move || loop {
let job = receiver.lock().unwrap().recv().unwrap();
println!("Worker {id} got a job; executing.");
job();
});
Worker {
id,
thread: Some(thread),
}
}
}
The first error is in our Drop implementation. We mentioned earlier that we
intended to call take on the Option value to move thread out of worker.
The following changes will do so:
Filename: src/lib.rs
use std::{
sync::{mpsc, Arc, Mutex},
thread,
};
pub struct ThreadPool {
workers: Vec<Worker>,
sender: mpsc::Sender<Job>,
}
type Job = Box<dyn FnOnce() + Send + 'static>;
impl ThreadPool {
/// Create a new ThreadPool.
///
/// The size is the number of threads in the pool.
///
/// # Panics
///
/// The `new` function will panic if the size is zero.
pub fn new(size: usize) -> ThreadPool {
assert!(size > 0);
let (sender, receiver) = mpsc::channel();
let receiver = Arc::new(Mutex::new(receiver));
let mut workers = Vec::with_capacity(size);
for id in 0..size {
workers.push(Worker::new(id, Arc::clone(&receiver)));
}
ThreadPool { workers, sender }
}
pub fn execute<F>(&self, f: F)
where
F: FnOnce() + Send + 'static,
{
let job = Box::new(f);
self.sender.send(job).unwrap();
}
}
impl Drop for ThreadPool {
fn drop(&mut self) {
for worker in &mut self.workers {
println!("Shutting down worker {}", worker.id);
if let Some(thread) = worker.thread.take() {
thread.join().unwrap();
}
}
}
}
struct Worker {
id: usize,
thread: Option<thread::JoinHandle<()>>,
}
impl Worker {
fn new(id: usize, receiver: Arc<Mutex<mpsc::Receiver<Job>>>) -> Worker {
let thread = thread::spawn(move || loop {
let job = receiver.lock().unwrap().recv().unwrap();
println!("Worker {id} got a job; executing.");
job();
});
Worker {
id,
thread: Some(thread),
}
}
}
As discussed in Chapter 17, the take method on Option takes the Some
variant out and leaves None in its place. We’re using if let to destructure
the Some and get the thread; then we call join on the thread. If a worker’s
thread is already None, we know that worker has already had its thread
cleaned up, so nothing happens in that case.
Signaling to the Threads to Stop Listening for Jobs
With all the changes we’ve made, our code compiles without any warnings.
However, the bad news is this code doesn’t function the way we want it to yet.
The key is the logic in the closures run by the threads of the Worker
instances: at the moment, we call join, but that won’t shut down the threads
because they loop forever looking for jobs. If we try to drop our
ThreadPool with our current implementation of drop, the main thread will
block forever waiting for the first thread to finish.
To fix this problem, we’ll need a change in the ThreadPool drop
implementation and then a change in the Worker loop.
First, we’ll change the ThreadPool drop implementation to explicitly drop
the sender before waiting for the threads to finish. Listing 20-23 shows the
changes to ThreadPool to explicitly drop sender. We use the same Option
and take technique as we did with the thread to be able to move sender out
of ThreadPool:
Filename: src/lib.rs
use std::{
sync::{mpsc, Arc, Mutex},
thread,
};
pub struct ThreadPool {
workers: Vec<Worker>,
sender: Option<mpsc::Sender<Job>>,
}
// --snip--
type Job = Box<dyn FnOnce() + Send + 'static>;
impl ThreadPool {
/// Create a new ThreadPool.
///
/// The size is the number of threads in the pool.
///
/// # Panics
///
/// The `new` function will panic if the size is zero.
pub fn new(size: usize) -> ThreadPool {
// --snip--
assert!(size > 0);
let (sender, receiver) = mpsc::channel();
let receiver = Arc::new(Mutex::new(receiver));
let mut workers = Vec::with_capacity(size);
for id in 0..size {
workers.push(Worker::new(id, Arc::clone(&receiver)));
}
ThreadPool {
workers,
sender: Some(sender),
}
}
pub fn execute<F>(&self, f: F)
where
F: FnOnce() + Send + 'static,
{
let job = Box::new(f);
self.sender.as_ref().unwrap().send(job).unwrap();
}
}
impl Drop for ThreadPool {
fn drop(&mut self) {
drop(self.sender.take());
for worker in &mut self.workers {
println!("Shutting down worker {}", worker.id);
if let Some(thread) = worker.thread.take() {
thread.join().unwrap();
}
}
}
}
struct Worker {
id: usize,
thread: Option<thread::JoinHandle<()>>,
}
impl Worker {
fn new(id: usize, receiver: Arc<Mutex<mpsc::Receiver<Job>>>) -> Worker {
let thread = thread::spawn(move || loop {
let job = receiver.lock().unwrap().recv().unwrap();
println!("Worker {id} got a job; executing.");
job();
});
Worker {
id,
thread: Some(thread),
}
}
}
Listing 20-23: Explicitly drop sender before joining
the worker threads
Dropping sender closes the channel, which indicates no more messages will be
sent. When that happens, all the calls to recv that the workers do in the
infinite loop will return an error. In Listing 20-24, we change the Worker
loop to gracefully exit the loop in that case, which means the threads will
finish when the ThreadPool drop implementation calls join on them.
Filename: src/lib.rs
use std::{
sync::{mpsc, Arc, Mutex},
thread,
};
pub struct ThreadPool {
workers: Vec<Worker>,
sender: Option<mpsc::Sender<Job>>,
}
type Job = Box<dyn FnOnce() + Send + 'static>;
impl ThreadPool {
/// Create a new ThreadPool.
///
/// The size is the number of threads in the pool.
///
/// # Panics
///
/// The `new` function will panic if the size is zero.
pub fn new(size: usize) -> ThreadPool {
assert!(size > 0);
let (sender, receiver) = mpsc::channel();
let receiver = Arc::new(Mutex::new(receiver));
let mut workers = Vec::with_capacity(size);
for id in 0..size {
workers.push(Worker::new(id, Arc::clone(&receiver)));
}
ThreadPool {
workers,
sender: Some(sender),
}
}
pub fn execute<F>(&self, f: F)
where
F: FnOnce() + Send + 'static,
{
let job = Box::new(f);
self.sender.as_ref().unwrap().send(job).unwrap();
}
}
impl Drop for ThreadPool {
fn drop(&mut self) {
drop(self.sender.take());
for worker in &mut self.workers {
println!("Shutting down worker {}", worker.id);
if let Some(thread) = worker.thread.take() {
thread.join().unwrap();
}
}
}
}
struct Worker {
id: usize,
thread: Option<thread::JoinHandle<()>>,
}
impl Worker {
fn new(id: usize, receiver: Arc<Mutex<mpsc::Receiver<Job>>>) -> Worker {
let thread = thread::spawn(move || loop {
let message = receiver.lock().unwrap().recv();
match message {
Ok(job) => {
println!("Worker {id} got a job; executing.");
job();
}
Err(_) => {
println!("Worker {id} disconnected; shutting down.");
break;
}
}
});
Worker {
id,
thread: Some(thread),
}
}
}
Listing 20-24: Explicitly break out of the loop when
recv returns an error
To see this code in action, let’s modify main to accept only two requests
before gracefully shutting down the server, as shown in Listing 20-25.
Filename: src/main.rs
use hello::ThreadPool;
use std::fs;
use std::io::prelude::*;
use std::net::TcpListener;
use std::net::TcpStream;
use std::thread;
use std::time::Duration;
fn main() {
let listener = TcpListener::bind("127.0.0.1:7878").unwrap();
let pool = ThreadPool::new(4);
for stream in listener.incoming().take(2) {
let stream = stream.unwrap();
pool.execute(|| {
handle_connection(stream);
});
}
println!("Shutting down.");
}
fn handle_connection(mut stream: TcpStream) {
let mut buffer = [0; 1024];
stream.read(&mut buffer).unwrap();
let get = b"GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n";
let sleep = b"GET /sleep HTTP/1.1\r\n";
let (status_line, filename) = if buffer.starts_with(get) {
("HTTP/1.1 200 OK", "hello.html")
} else if buffer.starts_with(sleep) {
thread::sleep(Duration::from_secs(5));
("HTTP/1.1 200 OK", "hello.html")
} else {
("HTTP/1.1 404 NOT FOUND", "404.html")
};
let contents = fs::read_to_string(filename).unwrap();
let response = format!(
"{}\r\nContent-Length: {}\r\n\r\n{}",
status_line,
contents.len(),
contents
);
stream.write_all(response.as_bytes()).unwrap();
stream.flush().unwrap();
}
Listing 20-25: Shut down the server after serving two requests by exiting the loop
You wouldn’t want a real-world web server to shut down after serving only two requests. This code just demonstrates that the graceful shutdown and cleanup is in working order.
The take method is defined in the Iterator trait and limits the iteration
to the first two items at most. The ThreadPool will go out of scope at the
end of main, and the drop implementation will run.
Start the server with cargo run, and make three requests. The third request
should error, and in your terminal you should see output similar to this:
$ cargo run
Compiling hello v0.1.0 (file:///projects/hello)
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 1.0s
Running `target/debug/hello`
Worker 0 got a job; executing.
Shutting down.
Shutting down worker 0
Worker 3 got a job; executing.
Worker 1 disconnected; shutting down.
Worker 2 disconnected; shutting down.
Worker 3 disconnected; shutting down.
Worker 0 disconnected; shutting down.
Shutting down worker 1
Shutting down worker 2
Shutting down worker 3
You might see a different ordering of workers and messages printed. We can see
how this code works from the messages: workers 0 and 3 got the first two
requests. The server stopped accepting connections after the second connection,
and the Drop implementation on ThreadPool starts executing before worker 3
even starts its job. Dropping the sender disconnects all the workers and
tells them to shut down. The workers each print a message when they disconnect,
and then the thread pool calls join to wait for each worker thread to finish.
Notice one interesting aspect of this particular execution: the ThreadPool
dropped the sender, and before any worker received an error, we tried to join
worker 0. Worker 0 had not yet gotten an error from recv, so the main thread
blocked waiting for worker 0 to finish. In the meantime, worker 3 received a
job and then all threads received an error. When worker 0 finished, the main
thread waited for the rest of the workers to finish. At that point, they had
all exited their loops and stopped.
Congrats! We’ve now completed our project; we have a basic web server that uses a thread pool to respond asynchronously. We’re able to perform a graceful shutdown of the server, which cleans up all the threads in the pool.
Here’s the full code for reference:
Filename: src/main.rs
use hello::ThreadPool;
use std::fs;
use std::io::prelude::*;
use std::net::TcpListener;
use std::net::TcpStream;
use std::thread;
use std::time::Duration;
fn main() {
let listener = TcpListener::bind("127.0.0.1:7878").unwrap();
let pool = ThreadPool::new(4);
for stream in listener.incoming().take(2) {
let stream = stream.unwrap();
pool.execute(|| {
handle_connection(stream);
});
}
println!("Shutting down.");
}
fn handle_connection(mut stream: TcpStream) {
let mut buffer = [0; 1024];
stream.read(&mut buffer).unwrap();
let get = b"GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n";
let sleep = b"GET /sleep HTTP/1.1\r\n";
let (status_line, filename) = if buffer.starts_with(get) {
("HTTP/1.1 200 OK", "hello.html")
} else if buffer.starts_with(sleep) {
thread::sleep(Duration::from_secs(5));
("HTTP/1.1 200 OK", "hello.html")
} else {
("HTTP/1.1 404 NOT FOUND", "404.html")
};
let contents = fs::read_to_string(filename).unwrap();
let response = format!(
"{}\r\nContent-Length: {}\r\n\r\n{}",
status_line,
contents.len(),
contents
);
stream.write_all(response.as_bytes()).unwrap();
stream.flush().unwrap();
}
Filename: src/lib.rs
use std::{
sync::{mpsc, Arc, Mutex},
thread,
};
pub struct ThreadPool {
workers: Vec<Worker>,
sender: Option<mpsc::Sender<Job>>,
}
type Job = Box<dyn FnOnce() + Send + 'static>;
impl ThreadPool {
/// Create a new ThreadPool.
///
/// The size is the number of threads in the pool.
///
/// # Panics
///
/// The `new` function will panic if the size is zero.
pub fn new(size: usize) -> ThreadPool {
assert!(size > 0);
let (sender, receiver) = mpsc::channel();
let receiver = Arc::new(Mutex::new(receiver));
let mut workers = Vec::with_capacity(size);
for id in 0..size {
workers.push(Worker::new(id, Arc::clone(&receiver)));
}
ThreadPool {
workers,
sender: Some(sender),
}
}
pub fn execute<F>(&self, f: F)
where
F: FnOnce() + Send + 'static,
{
let job = Box::new(f);
self.sender.as_ref().unwrap().send(job).unwrap();
}
}
impl Drop for ThreadPool {
fn drop(&mut self) {
drop(self.sender.take());
for worker in &mut self.workers {
println!("Shutting down worker {}", worker.id);
if let Some(thread) = worker.thread.take() {
thread.join().unwrap();
}
}
}
}
struct Worker {
id: usize,
thread: Option<thread::JoinHandle<()>>,
}
impl Worker {
fn new(id: usize, receiver: Arc<Mutex<mpsc::Receiver<Job>>>) -> Worker {
let thread = thread::spawn(move || loop {
let message = receiver.lock().unwrap().recv();
match message {
Ok(job) => {
println!("Worker {id} got a job; executing.");
job();
}
Err(_) => {
println!("Worker {id} disconnected; shutting down.");
break;
}
}
});
Worker {
id,
thread: Some(thread),
}
}
}
We could do more here! If you want to continue enhancing this project, here are some ideas:
- Add more documentation to
ThreadPooland its public methods. - Add tests of the library’s functionality.
- Change calls to
unwrapto more robust error handling. - Use
ThreadPoolto perform some task other than serving web requests. - Find a thread pool crate on crates.io and implement a similar web server using the crate instead. Then compare its API and robustness to the thread pool we implemented.
Summary
Well done! You’ve made it to the end of the book! We want to thank you for joining us on this tour of Rust. You’re now ready to implement your own Rust projects and help with other peoples’ projects. Keep in mind that there is a welcoming community of other Rustaceans who would love to help you with any challenges you encounter on your Rust journey.