Supervisor Behaviour

## 5 Supervisor Behaviour

This section should be read in conjunction with `supervisor(3)`, where all details about the supervisor behaviour is given.

### 5.1 Supervision Principles

A supervisor is responsible for starting, stopping and monitoring its child processes. The basic idea of a supervisor is that it should keep its child processes alive by restarting them when necessary.

Which child processes to start and monitor is specified by a list of child specifications. The child processes are started in the order specified by this list, and terminated in the reversed order.

### 5.2 Example

The callback module for a supervisor starting the server from the gen_server chapter could look like this:

    -module(ch_sup).
    -behaviour(supervisor).

    -export([start_link/0]).
    -export([init/1]).

    start_link() ->
        supervisor:start_link(ch_sup, []).

    init(_Args) ->
        {ok, {{one_for_one, 1, 60},
              [{ch3, {ch3, start_link, []},
                permanent, brutal_kill, worker, [ch3]}]}}.

`one_for_one` is the restart strategy.

1 and 60 defines the maximum restart frequency.

The tuple `{ch3, ...}` is a child specification.

### 5.3 Restart Strategy

#### 5.3.1 one_for_one

If a child process terminates, only that process is restarted.

One_For_One Supervision

#### 5.3.2 one_for_all

If a child process terminates, all other child processes are terminated and then all child processes, including the terminated one, are restarted.

One_For_All Supervision

#### 5.3.3 rest_for_one

If a child process terminates, the 'rest' of the child processes -- i.e. the child processes after the terminated process in start order -- are terminated. Then the terminated child process and the rest of the child processes are restarted.

### 5.4 Maximum Restart Frequency

The supervisors have a built-in mechanism to limit the number of restarts which can occur in a given time interval. This is determined by the values of the two parameters `MaxR` and `MaxT` in the start specification returned by the callback function `init`:

    init(...) ->
        {ok, {{RestartStrategy, MaxR, MaxT},
              [ChildSpec, ...]}}.

If more than `MaxR` number of restarts occur in the last `MaxT` seconds, then the supervisor terminates all the child processes and then itself.

When the supervisor terminates, then the next higher level supervisor takes some action. It either restarts the terminated supervisor, or terminates itself.

The intention of the restart mechanism is to prevent a situation where a process repeatedly dies for the same reason, only to be restarted again.

### 5.5 Child Specification

This is the type definition for a child specification:

    {Id, StartFunc, Restart, Shutdown, Type, Modules}
        Id = term()
        StartFunc = {M, F, A}
            M = F = atom()
            A = [term()]
        Restart = permanent | transient | temporary
        Shutdown = brutal_kill | integer() &gt;=0 | infinity
        Type = worker | supervisor
        Modules = [Module] | dynamic
            Module = atom()

- `Id` is a name that is used to identify the child specification internally by the supervisor.
- `StartFunc` defines the function call used to start the child process. It is a module-function-arguments tuple used as `apply(M, F, A)`.
  It should be (or result in) a call to `supervisor:start_link`, `gen_server:start_link`, `gen_fsm:start_link` or `gen_event:start_link`. (Or a function compliant with these functions, see `supervisor(3)` for details.
- `Restart` defines when a terminated child process should be restarted.
  - A `permanent` child process is always restarted.
  - A `temporary` child process is never restarted.
  - A `transient` child process is restarted only if it terminates abnormally, i.e. with another exit reason than `normal`.
- `Shutdown` defines how a child process should be terminated.
  - `brutal_kill` means the child process is unconditionally terminated using `exit(Child, kill)`.
  - An integer timeout value means that the supervisor tells the child process to terminate by calling `exit(Child, shutdown)` and then waits for an exit signal back. If no exit signal is received within the specified time, the child process is unconditionally terminated using `exit(Child, kill)`.
  - If the child process is another supervisor, it should be set to `infinity` to give the subtree enough time to shutdown.
- `Type` specifies if the child process is a supervisor or a worker.
- `Modules` should be a list with one element `[Module]`, where `Module` is the name of the callback module, if the child process is a supervisor, gen_server or gen_fsm. If the child process is a gen_event, `Modules` should be `dynamic`.
  This information is used by the release handler during upgrades and downgrades, see Release Handling.

Example: The child specification to start the server `ch3` in the example above looks like:

    {ch3,
     {ch3, start_link, []},
     permanent, brutal_kill, worker, [ch3]}

Example: A child specification to start the event manager from the chapter about gen_event:

    {error_man,
     {gen_event, start_link, [{local, error_man}]},
     permanent, 5000, worker, dynamic}

Both the server and event manager are registered processes which can be expected to be accessible at all times, thus they are specified to be `permanent`.

`ch3` does not need to do any cleaning up before termination, thus no shutdown time is needed but `brutal_kill` should be sufficient. `error_man` may need some time for the event handlers to clean up, thus `Shutdown` is set to 5000 ms.

Example: A child specification to start another supervisor:

    {sup,
     {sup, start_link, []},
     transient, infinity, supervisor, [sup]}

### 5.6 Starting a Supervisor

In the example above, the supervisor is started by calling `ch_sup:start_link()`:

    start_link() ->
        supervisor:start_link(ch_sup, []).

`ch_sup:start_link` calls the function `supervisor:start_link/2`. This function spawns and links to a new process, a supervisor.

- The first argument, `ch_sup`, is the name of the callback module, that is the module where the `init` callback function is located.
- The second argument, [], is a term which is passed as-is to the callback function `init`. Here, `init` does not need any indata and ignores the argument.

In this case, the supervisor is not registered. Instead its pid must be used. A name can be specified by calling `supervisor:start_link({local, Name}, Module, Args)` or `supervisor:start_link({global, Name}, Module, Args)`.

The new supervisor process calls the callback function `ch_sup:init([])`. `init` is expected to return `{ok, StartSpec}`:

    init(_Args) ->
        {ok, {{one_for_one, 1, 60},
              [{ch3, {ch3, start_link, []},
                permanent, brutal_kill, worker, [ch3]}]}}.

The supervisor then starts all its child processes according to the child specifications in the start specification. In this case there is one child process, `ch3`.

Note that `supervisor:start_link` is synchronous. It does not return until all child processes have been started.

### 5.7 Adding a Child Process

In addition to the static supervision tree, we can also add dynamic child processes to an existing supervisor with the following call:

    supervisor:start_child(Sup, ChildSpec)

`Sup` is the pid, or name, of the supervisor. `ChildSpec` is a child specification.

Child processes added using `start_child/2` behave in the same manner as the other child processes, with the following important exception: If a supervisor dies and is re-created, then all child processes which were dynamically added to the supervisor will be lost.

### 5.8 Stopping a Child Process

Any child process, static or dynamic, can be stopped in accordance with the shutdown specification:

    supervisor:terminate_child(Sup, Id)

The child specification for a stopped child process is deleted with the following call:

    supervisor:delete_child(Sup, Id)

`Sup` is the pid, or name, of the supervisor. `Id` is the id specified in the child specification.

As with dynamically added child processes, the effects of deleting a static child process is lost if the supervisor itself restarts.

### 5.9 Simple-One-For-One Supervisors

A supervisor with restart strategy `simple_one_for_one` is a simplified one_for_one supervisor, where all child processes are dynamically added instances of the same process.

Example of a callback module for a simple_one_for_one supervisor:

    -module(simple_sup).
    -behaviour(supervisor).

    -export([start_link/0]).
    -export([init/1]).

    start_link() ->
        supervisor:start_link(simple_sup, []).

    init(_Args) ->
        {ok, {{simple_one_for_one, 0, 1},
              [{call, {call, start_link, []},
                temporary, brutal_kill, worker, [call]}]}}.

When started, the supervisor will not start any child processes. Instead, all child processes are added dynamically by calling:

    supervisor:start_child(Sup, List)

`Sup` is the pid, or name, of the supervisor. `List` is an arbitrary list of terms which will be added to the list of arguments specified in the child specification. If the start function is specified as `{M, F, A}`, then the child process is started by calling `apply(M, F, A++List)`.

For example, adding a child to `simple_sup` above:

    supervisor:start_child(Pid, [id1])

results in the child process being started by calling `apply(call, start_link, []++[id1])`, or actually:

    call:start_link(id1)

### 5.10 Stopping

Since the supervisor is part of a supervision tree, it will automatically be terminated by its supervisor. When asked to shutdown, it will terminate all child processes in reversed start order according to the respective shutdown specifications, and then terminate itself.

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