Shepherd ↔ BEAM Protocol

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Transport

Communication between the BEAM and the shepherd binary occurs over a Unix domain socket (UDS) with SOCK_STREAM semantics.

Connection Lifecycle

  1. BEAM creates a UDS listener at a random temp path
  2. BEAM spawns shepherd via Port.open with the UDS path as argv[1]
  3. Shepherd connects to the UDS
  4. Shepherd forks the child process
  5. Shepherd sends pipe FDs via SCM_RIGHTS (1 message)
  6. Shepherd sends MSG_CHILD_STARTED (may be in same recv as FDs)
  7. Bidirectional command/notification flow begins
  8. On child exit: MSG_CHILD_EXITED, shepherd exits
  9. On BEAM death: shepherd sees POLLHUP, kills child

FD Passing (SCM_RIGHTS)

Immediately after fork, the shepherd sends file descriptors using sendmsg() with SCM_RIGHTS ancillary data.

Pipe mode (3 FDs):

[stdin_write_fd, stdout_read_fd, stderr_read_fd]

PTY mode (1 FD):

[master_fd]  (bidirectional — used for both read and write)

The iov payload is a single dummy byte (0x00). The BEAM receives this via :socket.recvmsg/5 and decodes FDs from the control message as native-endian 32-bit integers.

Message Format

All messages are byte-oriented, no framing needed (each message is atomic and small).

BEAM → Shepherd Commands

ByteCommandPayloadDescription
0x01CMD_KILLsignal_number (1 byte)Kill the child process group with given signal
0x02CMD_CLOSE_STDIN(none)Close shepherd's copy of stdin write FD
0x03CMD_SET_WINSIZErows (2 bytes, big-endian) + cols (2 bytes, big-endian)Set PTY window size via ioctl(TIOCSWINSZ)

Shepherd → BEAM Messages

ByteMessagePayloadDescription
0x80MSG_CHILD_STARTEDpid (4 bytes, big-endian)Child process PID after successful fork+exec
0x81MSG_CHILD_EXITEDstatus (4 bytes, big-endian)Child exit status (exit code or 128+signal)
0x82MSG_ERRORlength (2 bytes, big-endian) + message (N bytes)Error message string

Exit Status Encoding

  • Normal exit: WEXITSTATUS(status) (0-255)
  • Signal death: 128 + WTERMSIG(status) (e.g., SIGKILL=9 → 137)

Kill Protocol

When BEAM sends CMD_KILL:

  1. Shepherd calls kill(-child_pid, signal) (process group kill)
  2. Falls back to kill(child_pid, signal) if group doesn't exist

The BEAM also sends a direct NIF kill as belt-and-suspenders.

Close Stdin Protocol

Both sides must close their copy of stdin for the child to see EOF:

  1. BEAM closes its NIF resource (closes the FD)
  2. BEAM sends CMD_CLOSE_STDIN to shepherd
  3. Shepherd closes its copy of stdin_write_fd

Only then does the child's read(STDIN_FILENO) return 0 (EOF).

BEAM Death Detection

The shepherd watches the UDS with poll():

  • POLLHUP or POLLERR → BEAM died
  • Triggers kill_child(): SIGTERM → configurable timeout → SIGKILL
  • Also triggers cgroup cleanup if configured