New remote process starter module

Although process starting has never been an issue, I find one thing not so cool in Erlang, all io:format output gets sent to the node where you started it, which is very inconvenient IMHO, so I created something simple and new: the smash proxy (SP), which is a remote process starter. Imagine you already have a set of servers running and want to join new ones with everything and starting the services on them remotely, so you monitor new nodes coming online, copy the code over to them and start processes on them, but this time around, all messages they generate will be displayed on their console window, not on the console you triggered that from.

When starting up a new node (slave1@pcname) start the SP with the command line options "-s sp" or "-s sp start ", the first option will start the service, but it won't join you to the other nodes, the second option will generate a net_adm:ping() saving you from having to do it manually. From this point on you can start processes from another node on this one by sending rpc:sbcast([slave1@pcname], sp, {start,{Mod, Fun, Arg}}) [note hat Arg must be a list, as it is passed on to spawn] to it and SP will start the process for you locally. So it's a remote local process caller.

Here is how:
1) Create a folder where all the other Erlang OTP applications reside, I called it "sp" (app root folder), underneath that create a folder called ebin and one called src.
2) create a file called "info" under that root folder and put these lines in it:

group: tools
short: A generic SMASH process starter

3) go under source and create a file called "sp.erl", then throw these lines of code in it:

-module(sp).
-compile(export_all).
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
rpc(Mod, Fun, Arg) -> rpc({start, {Mod, Fun, Arg} }).
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
start() ->
register(sp, spawn(?MODULE, loop, []) ).
start(Master) ->
register(sp, spawn(?MODULE, loop, []) ),
io:format("SP: Spawning ping to: ~p~n",[Master]),
?MODULE:rpc(net_adm, ping, Master).
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Normal rpc call to this same node
rpc(Query) ->
sp ! {self(), Query},
receive
{kvs, Reply} ->
Reply
after 3000 ->
{error, noresponse}
end.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
loop() ->
receive
{Rpcpid, {start, {Mod, Fun, Arg}}} ->
P1=spawn(Mod, Fun, Arg),
Rpcpid ! {kvs, P1},
loop();
{start, {Mod, Fun, Arg}} ->
io:format("SP: Spawning ~p ~p ~p~n",[Mod, Fun, Arg]),
catch(spawn(Mod, Fun, Arg)),
loop();
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Standard interface
quit ->
io:format("SP: Smash Proxy shutting down=~p~n",[quit]),
{ok, true};
upgrade ->
io:format("SP: Smash Proxy upgrading ...~n"),
?MODULE:loop();
Any ->
io:format("SP: Smash Proxy received Msg=~p~n", [Any]),
loop()
end.

4) Now create sp.app under the ebin folder:

{application, sp,
[{description, "Serves to start applications remotely"},
{vsn, "1.0"},
{modules,
[
sp
]},
{registered, [sp]},
{applications, [stdlib, kernel, net_adm, io, mnesia]},
{env, []}
}
]}.

5) Create a file sp.appup under ebin:

{"1.0.0.0",[],[]}.

6) Compile the erl file and make sure that the generated beam ends up under the ebin folder.

You are done now, call the proxy at start up as described above and you can now do remote starts with local display of data. The src folder is not required on each node, only the ebin, so make sure to throw it into each new node installation and you are done. Or take the erl/beam file only and start the Erlang VM from the same folder, it does the same job. If you ever need to upgrade the code in runtime, then replace the beam file and send a command like this to it: sp ! upgrade to renew the code or do a rpc:sbcast to all nodes, as you please. I hope it helps for your projects, too.

Cheers,

Sunweaver