cute program for managing long running processes in a (slightly) more
sophisticated way than [tmux](https://github.com/tmux/tmux).

# links
* [crates.io](https://crates.io/crates/sopht)
* [docs.rs](https://docs.rs/sopht/0.3.0)

# overview
sopht consists of two programs: a *server* (`sophtd`) which runs on a unix
socket and listens for connections from a sopht *client* (`sopht`). the server
is responsible for starting and managing any processes the client requests.
the client is responsible for validating the user's commands, communicating with
the server, and finally conveying its response in a readable way to the user.

sopht is a user-level level program. this means that each user in a multi-user
environment is encouraged to have their own instance of `sophtd` running in the
background. sopht should *never* be run as the root/admin user! in fact, it will
fail if run as a privileged user like `root` because this user has no home
directory, which sopht needs to create the unix socket. see the
[install](#build-and-install) section below for information on how to properly
install the client and server.

# usage
```
sopht v0.3.0
cute process manager
(slightly) more sophisticated than tmux

commands:
  help
    prints this message

  hello
    requests the server greet you. kinda like a ping command, but friendlier

  shutdown
    shuts the server down gracefully

  start <...>
    attempts to run the rest of the arguments <..> as a command and begins
    managing the resulting process. pass "--restart <policy>" to set the restart
    policy of the process. valid restart policies are "never", "always", and
    "on-failure". if setting the restart policy to "on-failure", the
    "--retries <retry-count>" option must also be specified.

  output <pid>
    completely retrives the output of the process with the specified PID

  status
    retrieves the status of all managed processes

  stop <pid>
    stops the process with the specified PID and sets its restart policy to
    "never"

  restart <pid>
    stops the process with the specified PID and runs the same command again,
    creating a new process with a different PID.

  send <pid> <...>
    sends the rest of the arguments <...> as input to the process with PID
    <pid> a newline is automatically appended onto the output given to the
    process.

  change-policy <pid> <policy>  
    changes the policy of process with PID <pid> to the policy given by
    <policy>. unlike the "start" command, the policy must be written as one
    string like "on-failure 3" or "always".

```

# contributing
there are lots of ways to help, see the [contributing](CONTRIBUTING.md) document
to learn how.

# build and install
currently, sopht is hosted solely on sourcehut. it follows the regular `cargo 
build` procedure though, so just clone this repository and build it. (make sure
you're using the `--release` option for optimized and stripped binaries!)
after that, the best way to install sopht currently is to just use the builtin
`install` program to copy it to `/usr/local/bin`:
```
install ./target/release/sopht /usr/local/bin/sopht
install ./target/release/sophtd /usr/local/bin/sophtd
```

after this, copy the `sopht.service` into `/etc/systemd/user/`. now, start and
stop `sophtd` via `systemctl --user start sopht` and `systemctl --user stop
sopht`. some may prefer to enable sopht via `systemctl --user enable
sopht` so sopht is available on system startup.

additionally, sopht can be installed via [crates.io] if you have `cargo`.
although, this will prevent you from running sopht via the service file
provided above:
```
cargo install sopht
```