Best method for maintaining a session ID across multiple threads

[markdibley]

Hello

I need to maintain a sessionID that I receive from SalesForce when I login. The sessionID lasts for 15 minutes and then has to be renewed with a new login. However, I have multiple threads who all need to update SalesForce and if each of them login the login will cancel any current active sessionID.

I think this means that the best way to manage this is to either have a single thread responsible for issuing the current valid sessionID and renewing the sessionID when it becomes stale OR get each thread to read the sessionID from a file, test the date of the file to see if the sessionID is most likely to be stale, remove the file and generate a new one.

The problem I have with solution 1 is that I don't know how to get 2 threads to talk to each other. With solution 2 I am unhappy with the possibility that a thread can pick up a valid sessionID and then 1 second later another thread thinks it is going to be stale and resets it resulting in retries or complicated pausing rules.

I am sure this has been handled before, but my searches aren't being very productive. Is there a standard way of dealing with this problem? Or even better yet, a perl module that can handle it?

Thanks

[BrowserUk]

The problem I have with solution 1 is that I don't know how to get 2 threads to talk to each other.

If the "threads" in question are these threads, then have you not encountered threads::shared?

If not, you'll need to specify/clarify your meaning of "threads".

[markdibley]

Hi, thanks for the reply

I realised last night that I had missed out a couple of key factors to my problem. The first is that each "thread" is actually a queued job on a Gridengine cluster so each "thread" isn't forked from the program that does the logging in and also the cluster is across multiple servers which have a shared disk space and network but obviously don't have access to each others' processes.

I guess I am using the term thread incorrectly

So after more thought about it I am going to investigate writing something that can serve the sessionID to "processes" via a port. And when it comes to renewing the sessionID to perhaps look for, or enforce a 10 second window to ensure the last "customer" has time to finish it's connection.

Unless, of course, there is a better way to do it.

[BrowserUk]

I guess I am using the term thread incorrectly

The generic term for a single instance in a cluster is 'node'.

So after more thought about it I am going to investigate writing something that can serve the sessionID to "processes" via a port.

Clustering software always has some form of message passing API that allows the processes to communicate.

A quick google suggests that GridEngine supports OpenMPI. You shouldn't need to be inventing a solution for this, just read the docs.

[Anonymous Monk]

Use something like CGI::Session or Apache::Session (neither of which require CGI nor Apache), or Data::UUID

[Gangabass]

If you create your threads AFTER login when each thread will be logged in.

my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
$mech->submit_form(
    with_fields => {
        login => "your_login",
        password => "your_password",
    },
);

my @threads =
  map { threads->create( \&create_thread, $_ ) }
  ( 1 .. $config->{number_of_threads} );