Possible Bug with Pengines+Process+Windows

Help!
1

Hi!

I’m using: SWI-Prolog version 8.2.4 on Windows.

Consider this use case: I am running a program which connects to a database and performs some calculations. When I run it from my home, it’s much slower than running from a company server because it goes through the VPN. Therefore, I want to run it remotely. I tried to use pengine_rpc for this. I created a pengine server which does nothing but run a program with create_process and write back the output. I would like to connect to this server from another machine (my laptop), but so far, I have only tested it locally.

On Linux, this works as expected. On Windows 10, the rpc call gets stuck until I query the same predicate on the server prolog instance.

To clarify:

Linux:

swipl instance 1:

  • start http_server with pengines.
  • query pengine_rpc(localhost… run…) → works immediately.
    swipl instance 2:
  • query pengine_rpc(localhost… run…) → works immediately.

Windows

swipl instance 1:

  • start http_server with pengines.
  • query pengine_rpc(localhost... run...) → works immediately.
    swipl instance 2:
  • query pengine_rpc(localhost... run...) → is stuck.
    Back to instance 1:
  • query run(...) → works immediately and also the query in instance 2 finishes. pengines_rpc(..., member(X,[1,2])) or similar on the server also works for this purpose, but queries that are neither process- nor pengines-related don’t.

My code looks like this:

server.pl:

:- use_module(library(http/thread_httpd)).
:- use_module(library(http/http_dispatch)).
:- http_server(http_dispatch, [port(4343)]).

:- use_module(library(pengines)).
:- use_module(pengine_sandbox:abr).
:- use_module(library(sandbox)).

:- multifile sandbox:safe_primitive/1.
sandbox:safe_primitive(abr:run(_,_,_)).

abr.pl:

:- module(abr, [run/3]).

run(Cmd, ArgStr, Output) :-
    split_string(ArgStr, " ", "", Args),
    process_create(path(Cmd), Args, [stdout(pipe(OutStr)), stderr(pipe(OutStr))]),
    read_string(OutStr, _, Output),
    close(OutStr).

Query:

?-  pengine_rpc('http://localhost:4343', run(ls, "..", O)).

Is there a known limitation or something I can do to work around this? Anything needs to be closed explicitly?

Thanks a lot!
Mike

2

Exact SWI version is threaded, 64 bits, version 8.2.4.