Actors User's Guide

At the core, an Actor system is simple. An Actor is a standalone entity that receives messages from other Actors and does one of three things:

1. Changes internal state
2. Creates other Actors
3. Sends a finite number of messages to other Actors

Importantly, an Actor cannot access internals of other Actors, and it should not access any globals. The Actor operates solely on information passed to the Actor via a message or else generated internally by the Actor itself.

Actors may only communicate with other Actors by sending messages to those Actors, using known addresses for those target Actors.

Note that messages are unidirectional: there is no required acknowledgement from an Actor that it has received a message. Actors are free to exchange whatever messages their implementation dictates however, including sending acknowledgement messages back to the sender.

In practice, an Actor receiving a message will perform some sort of application-specific processing as a result.

All Actors have an Address which identifies them uniquely within the ActorSystem. The ActorSystem assigns an Address to an Actor and the Actor should treat that Address as an opaque value.

Actors will communicate with other Actors using the ActorAddress of the other actors. ActorAddress values cannot be synthesized. An Actor obtains the ActorAddress of other actors in one of two ways:

1. The return value from an Actor create request is an ActorAddress
2. Receiving an ActorAddress in a message from another Actor

The ActorSystem determines the actual value of an ActorAddress and the value varies with the implementation of the ActorSystem and the transport mechanism used. Actors may print the string form of ActorAddresses, and they may compare ActorAddresses for equality or inequality and use them as hash values (e.g. for dictionary keys), but they should not otherwise depend on or attempt to utilize the value of an ActorAddress.

An Actor can refer to its own ActorAddress using the .myAddress property.

The ActorSystem is the framework within which the Actors reside. The ActorSystem is responsible for Actor lifecycle management (creating and terminating Actors) and message delivery functions.

Actors run in an ActorSystem and communicate with each other using the message sending capability, but it is also typically necessary for the external world to communicate with Actors to initiate activity by those Actors and obtain the corresponding results. External applications use the following ActorSystem operations to communicate with Actors in that system (these operations are not intended for use by Actors themselves):

• tell – sends a message to a target Actor (as specified by the target Actor's ActorAddress)
• ask – sends a message to a target Actor and waits for the Actor to send a response message.
• createActor – creates a new Actor. There is no Parent Actor for the newly created Actor; this Actor is referred to as a "top-level Actor" and it is managed by the ActorSystem itself. No other Actor will be notified if the top-level Actor exits.

To the Actor's themselves the messages delivered via the tell or ask operations appear to have come from another Actor with an ActorAddress. The Actor is unaware that these messages originated from external code.

The ActorSystem API section has more details on the ActorSystem operations.

Using an Actor system like Thespian tends to be a transformative experience in code generation. Aspects which were previously difficult to work with (multi-processing, concurrency, inter-process communications and networking, scalability, fault tolerance and recovery, etc) are all handled by the Actor System itself, allowing the Actors to focus on the primary needs of the application itself.

An ActorSystem is created simply by instantiating an ActorSystem() object and specifying the type or "base" of the ActorSystem, as well as any optional capabilities of that system. For example, to startup an ActorSystem using the "multiprocTCPBase":

>>> asys = ActorSystem('multiprocTCPBase')

More details on the explicit parameters for this call are found in the ActorSystem section of this document and the known system bases are describe in the ActorSystem Implementations section.

Once created, the running ActorSystem is (by default) a singleton instance for the current process. This means that subsequent references can either use the direct reference (e.g. asys in the example above) or another ActorSystem() instantiation with no parameters.

Actors are created on demand and then persist until they receive a request to exit. Actors in a multiprocess System Base are independent of the process that created them and can outlive that process; Actors in a multi-threaded or synchronous System Base exist within the lifetime of the process itself.

Actors exit when explicitly requested to exit, or when the ActorSystem itself is shutdown.

Messages are delivered to Actors on a best-effort basis. This means that under normal or even most abnormal circumstances, the ActorSystem effectively guarantees that an Actor's send will reach the intended recipient (eventually). However, under extreme circumstances (grand-mal failure of a multiprocessing system environment, completely hung Actors, etc.) the ActorSystem may not deliver a message; this is why it is classified as best-effort instead of guaranteed delivery.

When the recipient is busy, the outgoing message is queued in the sending Actor's system space. The sending Actor will retry the send periodically. The sending Actor can have multiple messages queued for different targets, but each target is independently handled: messages for a specific target are sent in order but messages queued to different targets are sent independently. Eventually the Actor's .send() request will block if there are too many messages queued for the intended target. This queueing mechanism provides a "back-pressure" mechanism throughout the system to prevent too many messages being held in limbo.

If the recipient exits before the sent message is delivered, the message is redirected as described in Dead Letter Handling.

If the ActorSystem is unable to deliver a message to the target Actor (usually because the target Actor is dead or has otherwise exited), the ActorSystem will route that message to Dead Letter handling. A DeadEnvelope wrapper is placed around the message to indicate this situation.

By default, the Dead Letter handling will discard the message in question (possibly logging the event).

It is possible for an Actor to register for handling Dead Letters. In this case, the dead-letter handling Actor receives all messages that could not be delivered to their target address.

Dead letter handling is not a fail-safe to prevent messages from getting lost, but it is a recommended method by which Actors update their knowledge about other Actors that no longer exist and cease sending messages to those other Actors. One reason for this is that the address of the Actor that no longer exists may—at some point—be assigned to a new and completely different Actor; if the original Actor persisted in sending messages to the dead Actor the new Actor would receive those messages which would undoubtably cause confusion.

Actors that cannot be started at all will be Dead Lettered by the ActorSystem. If an Actor has registered for receiving Dead Letters (see Dead Letter Handling) then it can perform special actions to handle the non-starting Actor, but by default Dead Letter Handling discards all messages sent to a non-starting Actor.

If an Actor experiences a failure (an uncaught exception) when processing a message, the ActorSystem will catch the exception and retry delivery of the message to the target Actor (as describe in Actor Failure).

If the target Actor generates another exception when handling the message the second time, the ActorSystem will assume that the message has caused the failure and will wrap the message in a PoisonMessage wrapper object and send it back to the sender of the original message. The Actor experiencing the exception is still live, and delivery of subsequent messages still occurs.

See PoisonMessage for details on the PoisonMessage object.

Actors created by the external environment are called "Top-Level Actors" and are unique in that they have no "parent" Actor (see Parent Actor). Since there is no Parent Actor, there is nowhere to send a ChildActorExited message when the Actor dies and therefore there is no allowance for restarting Top Level Actors.

Messages sent to a Top Level Actor that has died will still be redirected to the Dead Letter Handler (see Dead Letter Handling).

Most Actors are created and subsequently referenced by the ActorAddress. Any Actor can use this ActorAddress to send a message to the created Actor.

At times, however, it may be convenient to explicitly refer to a single Actor in the entire system—a Singleton—without knowing the Address of that Actor. To support this, Thespian allows the creation of "Named Actors" where the name given uniquely identifies the Actor.

The initial Actor creation request with the name will create the requested Actor, but the ActorSystem will remember the Actor associated with that name andall subsequent Actor creation requests with the same name will return the originally created Actor (see the globalName parameter to the ActorSystem's createActor call or the Actor's createActor call).

It is possible to create any number of Named Actors in the system, although it is the responsibility of the creators to manage the namespace of those Actors.

There are a couple of disadvantages to Named Actors to consider as offsets relative to their convenience:

1. The ActorSystem itself manages all Named Actors (similar to Top-Level Actors) rather than a Parent Actor and therefore there is no notification when a Named Actor exits, and any messages sent to a Named Actor that has exited will be sent to the Dead Letter Handler.
2. Interaction with Named Actors can be slower than for standard Actors because of the need to perform global lookup and coordination based on the name.
3. The globalName is (at present time) unique only to the Actor System within which it is running. There may be multiple Actor Systems running and communicating as part of a Convention (see Other Actor Systems), but the uniqueness of the globalName (and corresponding Actor instance) applies only to the system that has created it. See Multi-system Global Name support for more details and recommendations.

It is recommended (but not required) that only the top-level, coordinating Actors be Named Actors and that most Actors in the system be unnamed Actors to avoid these disadvantages.

Normally Actors respond to messages sent to them by other Actors, but sometimes an Actor would like to run again after a timed delay. While it is possible for the Actor to sleep internally, this will prevent it from responding to other messages and cause messages to be queued causing eventual delivery failure (see Message Delivery).

To avoid this, each Actor has a .wakeupAfter() method that can be called with a specified Python timedelta value. The ActorSystem will schedule the delivery of a WakeupMessage after that time period has elapsed. Multiple wakeups can be pending for an Actor at any single time, and the delivery of the WakeupMessage is interleaved into the normal incoming message stream for the Actor.

To distinguish WakeupMessage instances that have been scheduled for different purposes, it is possible to supply a payload as a second parameter to .wakeupAfter(). The payload can be arbitrary but it is accrued against the actor's memory until it is delivered. Hence, it is recommended to keep the payload reasonably small.

There is no provision for cancelling a pending wakeup; the Actor should simply ignore the WakeupMessage when it is received.

The Actor model itself is a pure specification that is good for concurrent computational tasks, but real-world Actors must often interact with or control the external world via sockets, files, or other interface elements.

One way to accomplish this is to use the .wakeupAfter() functionality described in the previous section to periodically run the Actor, whereupon it may check to see if there is any pending I/O for these interface elements. Each interface element should be accessed in "non-blocking" mode so that the Actor itself can exit immediately if there is no work to be done (thereby allowing the Actor to process new messages as soon as they are received). The http_server1.py file is an example of a simple HTTP server based on this model.

The above model is fairly limited however: it is essentially a busy-wait loop that consumes resources even when there is no work to do, and its responsiveness is limited by the period of the wakeup calls. An alternative approach provided by some Thespian SytemBases is the "Watch" extension (as indicated by a System Capability of "Thespian Watch Supported" with a value of True).

When using the Watch extension, the Actor should return a ThespianWatch object each time its .receiveMessage() method is called. The ThespianWatch object is initialized with a list of file descriptors (from sockets or files) that should be watched, and if any of these have readable data, the Actor will be called with a WatchMessage message. The WatchMessage.ready member is a list of the supplied file descriptors that can be read from. The ThespianWatch is only valid for that single return from the Actor's .receiveMessage() call, and it must be supplied each time the .receiveMessage() returns to specify any file descriptors that should be watched during the wait for the next .receiveMessage() invocation.

The http_server2.py file is an example of a simple HTTP server that is similar to the http_server1.py but this example is modified to use the Watch extension.

The Watch extension has a number of limitations:

1. It is not available for all ActorSystem bases (only those with a system capability of "Thespian Watch Supported" where the value is True).
2. It is OS-dependent: on Linux, any file object may be watched, but on Windows only sockets may be watched.
3. It only watches for "readable" events, not writable or exception events.
4. It implies the use of select.select().
5. There is no timeout (use .wakeupAfter() for this).

Writing Actors which utilize the Watch extension may siginificantly limit the portability of these Actors.

If specified appropriately, multiple instances of an Actor can be created which share the same ActorAddress; this is known as an Actor Troupe.

• Messages sent to the ActorAddress associated with the Troupe may be handled by any of the members of the Troupe,
• A message will be delivered to only one member of the Troupe, but the handling of that message will be performed independently and asynchronously to any other message being handled by a member of the Troupe.

The Actor Troupe allows for scalability and parallelization of individual Actor functionality. Conversely, the use of a single Actor (instead of a Troupe) ensures single-threaded, synchronous handling of messages for that Actor.

See Actor Troupe Support for more details.

Actors can stipulate the requirements of the ActorSystem that they will run in by matching "Capabilities" of the ActorSystem. Each ActorSystem has a set of Capabilities specified as a key/value dictionary. This dictionary is passed to an Actor's ActorSystemCapabilityCheck() static method, which examines the capabilities and returns True or False to indicate whether or not the current ActorSystem is viable for the Actor.

If the current ActorSystem is rejected for creating the Actor, the ActorSystem will pass the Actor Create request to other ActorSystems to see if any of those systems can create the requested Actor.

The Capabilities of an ActorSystem are free form and the actual capability keys and values are determined by whatever agent specifies them.

All Thespian ActorSystem instances automatically supply a set of common capabilities described in the Common Capabilities section.

The current ActorSystem can communicate with other ActorSystems to coordinate Actor activities as described in Multiple Systems. To support this, the ActorSystems communicate on known transport addresses to form a "Convention" of ActorSystems.

When new Actors are created, the ActorSystem Capabilities of the ActorSystems that are part of the Convention are used to determine where to start up the requested new Actor.

Remote ActorSystem implementations can be different than the local ActorSystem as long as they properly handle communications between the two ActorSystems and the Actors contained therein.

Actors can also register to be aware of when remote ActorSystems enter or exit the convention. Registered Actors will receive an ActorSystemConventionUpdate message for these events. Actors register for these updates using the notifyOnSystemRegistrationChanges API call.

An Actor System Convention is managed by one or more convention leaders, whose job is to help route actor creation and actor messages between different systems with potentially different capabilities. There is currently Beta support for having multiple convention leaders to provide a measure of fault-tolerance in case a convention leader fails or exits the convention; this support is currently in Beta status and should not be used in a production environment.

Not all ActorSystems support multi-system communications, and those that do are normally of the multi-process variety.

The Thespian implementation is design principles are: correctness, reliability, responsiveness, and performance — in that order. In general Thespian is intended to be used in situations involving Actors that communicate relatively frequently with each other, but not necessarily with high volumes of data. While there is nothing in the Thespian implementation that prevents exchanging multi-megabyte messages between Actors, the implementation is oriented more towards low latency and responsiveness rather than high-speed streaming.

To further ensure that a Thespian Actor-based application is a good network citizen, there is automatic rate limiting applied to the exchange of messages between Actors. This rate limit is currently set to approximately 80Mib/s – slightly less than the traffic rate that would saturate a 100Mib/s Ethernet link. This is designed to protect the overall environment from runaway failure conditions in the Actor-based application; please contact Thespian development if this is adversely affecting your Actor-base application.

The standard Python logging can be used with the Thespian Actor system, although there are some Thespian modifications to logging that improve the logging experience using Thespian.

The optional logDefs argument passed to the ActorSystem() instantiation (see below) will specify the primary logging configuration for Thespian and corresponding Actors (regardless of where the logger is obtained).

The functionality provided by logging in the Thespian environment possibly includes sending log messages to a central Logging actor (as explicitly indicated in the ActorSystem Implementations section). This is needed because the standard Python logging is not multi-process safe and attempts to use it as-is will result in missing or duplicated log messages.

In addition to sending log messages to the Logging actor, the Convention Manager ActorSystem also receives all log messages from any conference member that is of WARNING level or above. This facilitates centralized logging of significant issues across a multitude of hosts running ActorSystems.

Once the logging configuration has been specified in the ActorSystem() call, the normal python logging library can be used to generate logging messages; these messages will be forwarded to the Logging actor (and possibly the Convention Manager) where the actual logging will occur.

Log output generated by Actors may automatically have an "actorAddress" attribute added, which can be referenced by the log formatter (in the same manner as the standard attributes such as "levelname" and "message"). The "actorAddress" attribute is not always present because some logging can be generated externally to the actors; the formatting operation cannot account for this, so a filter should be used to ensure the right formatter is specified.

The logging configuration is specified using the standard Python Logging dictionary specification (documented in https://docs.python.org/3/library/logging.config.html). For example:

import logging

class actorLogFilter(logging.Filter):
    def filter(self, logrecord):
        return 'actorAddress' in logrecord.__dict__
class notActorLogFilter(logging.Filter):
    def filter(self, logrecord):
        return 'actorAddress' not in logrecord.__dict__

logcfg = { 'version': 1,
           'formatters': {
               'normal': {'format': '%(levelname)-8s %(message)s'},
               'actor': {'format': '%(levelname)-8s %(actorAddress)s => %(message)s'}},
           'filters': { 'isActorLog': { '()': actorLogFilter},
                        'notActorLog': { '()': notActorLogFilter}},
           'handlers': { 'h1': {'class': 'logging.FileHandler',
                                'filename': 'example.log',
                                'formatter': 'normal',
                                'filters': ['notActorLog'],
                                'level': logging.INFO},
                         'h2': {'class': 'logging.FileHandler',
                                'filename': 'example.log',
                                'formatter': 'actor',
                                'filters': ['isActorLog'],
                                'level': logging.INFO},},
           'loggers' : { '': {'handlers': ['h1', 'h2'], 'level': logging.DEBUG}}
         }

This logging configuration complexity is unfortunately imposed by the need to select the proper formatter, but this complexity can be captured in an auxiliary file and is only needed for passing to the ActorSystem() instantiation.

The Thespian ActorSystem provides a feature to specify the code used for Actor implementations.

By default, an Actor implementation is obtained by importing from the current environment and then passing that object to a createActor() call. When used in this default manner, all of the .py sources used to implement Actors must be in the import path of the Thespian ActorSystem itself.

With the Code Distribution feature provided by Thespian it is possible to load specific Actor code as provided by a (possibly encrypted) zipfile. The zipfile can be dynamically loaded into an already-running Thespian ActorSystem. This provides a number of advantages:

• The Thespian ActorSystem can be distributed and activated as a standalone element. The code for Actors to be run within the system can be distributed separately.
• Actor implementation code can be protected by encryption, allowing that code to run only when the proper decryption key is provided. This provides both distribution security (Python source files are not readable by anyone with access to the computer on which they are installed) and validation of authorization to interact with and execute the Actor code (especially in cases where the ActorSystem runs with elevated privileges).
• Multiple unrelated sets of Actors can share the same ActorSystem without adverse interactions.
• Running Actor implementations can be updated without requiring the entire ActorSystem to be stopped and restarted. This is especially useful when the ActorSystem is hosting multiple different and independent sets of Actors.
• Multiple instances of the same set of Actors can be running in the same ActorSystem simultaneously. This is especially useful when upgrading to a new version of a set of Actors where all new messages are directed to the new Actors while allowing all messages circulating between the older Actors to drain; in this scenario there is no downtime to customers when upgrading an Actor implementation.

When the Thespian Actor Code Distribution mechanism is used in a multi-ActorSystem configuration (e.g. cooperating ActorSystems between several computers), it is only necessary to load the zipfile into one ActorSystem. The different ActorSystems will automatically pull the zipfile from the source system to support a createActor operations that would occur in that other ActorSystems (e.g. due to system capabilities or actor requirements). This mechanism allows the following additional benefits:

• Actor code distribution can be done by simply loading the new code version into a single ActorSystem (usually the convention leader) and all other ActorSystems will automatically update with that code on an as-needed basis.
• Actor implementation synchronization. The createActor will automatically synchronize the current zipfile version to the target ActorSystem before instantiating the new Actor, thereby ensuring that the local Actor is communicating with an up-to-date version of the remote Actor. There is no longer a risk that a newer version of an Actor will attempt to communicate with a remote Actor instance that is out-of-date and encounter version-related problems.

The loadActorSource operation describes this capability in more detail, including security protections associated with this feature.

The Thespian Director document describes the Director utility and how it can help to use loadable Actor sources in a safe and practical manner.

self.myAddress

This property is the ActorAddress of this Actor.

    def receiveMessage(self, message, sender): ...

This method is the primary entry point into the Actor to handle received messages. Each subclass should override the base Actor receiveMessage() method as appropriate. The message argument is the message being received, and the sender is the ActorAddress of the Actor (or External Communications endpoint) sending the message.

The message can be discarded once it has been handled. As described previously in Actors, there are three things an Actor can do when handling a message:

1. Update internal state
2. Create a finite number of other Actors
3. Send a finite number of messages to other Actors

If the processing of the message causes an exception, the failure will be caught by the ActorSystem and the message may be retried or returned to the sender as described in PoisonMessage Returns. Note that the original copy of the receive message is passed to the Actor with each attempt; if the Actor modifies the message before failing with an exception, the retried or Poison-returned version will contain the modifications made by the original attempt.

newAddress = self.createActor(self, actorClass,
                              targetActorRequirements=None,
                              globalName=None,
                              sourceHash=None)

This method is called by the Actor to create a new Actor represented by the specified actorClass. The actorClass may be specified as either a class object or as a module-qualified string (e.g. "foo.bar.BarActor" will search for class BarActor in the bar.py in the foo directory). The InvalidActorSpecification exception will be thrown if the actorClass is not specified in a valid manner.

The optional targetActorRequirements argument is a value that will be passed passed to the actorSystemCapabilityCheck to use for validating whether the Actor can be started within the current ActorSystem environment (see ActorSystem Capabilities). The value specified for this argument can be anything the target Actor's actorSystemCapabilityCheck() method can understand, although typically it is a Python dictionary.

The globalName argument, if specified, should be a string specifying the "name" of the Actor within the ActorSystem. As describe in Named Actors, this name allows the Actor to be a system-wide singleton and to be uniquely identified and referenced in a manner additional to the ActorAddress of the actor.

The sourceHash argument, if specified, indicates a loaded source in which the actorClass should be found when attempting to load the actorClass source and start the Actor. See ActorSys.createActor() for more details.

The context for the created Actor will be the context under which the Thespian system was started. This means that if the Thespian system was started as root, then all Actors will run as root.

The source for the actorClass to be created is established by the current Actor, relative to any loadActorSource operation that apply to the creating Actor itself:

• If an Actor class is specified directly, that class is obtained via import operations. These import operations use the lookup search path that already use a searchpath that contains any loaded actor source operations.
• If a module-qualified string specifies the actorClass, then the lookup of that class will use the same source hash lookup path that the Actor itself came from.
• It is not possible to specify an alternate source file hash when performing a createActor() call from within an Actor (only the ActorSystem createActor() method can do that).
• If the target Actor must be instantiated in a separate ActorSystem and that ActorSystem does not have the loadActorSource for the target Actor available, it will automatically obtain that loadActorSource file from the current system and then start the target Actor from that source. This can be used as a code distribution methodology for the ActorSystems' environment. The ActorSystem that initiated the createActor() call with the hash must already have that source loaded.

The return value of this method is the ActorAddress of the newly-created Actor. Note that this address may be provided even before the target Actor is instantiated and is ready for handling messages. The ActorSystem will automatically buffer any messages sent to the new Actor until that Actor is ready; the creating Actor is free to send messages immediately on completion of this request and does not need to be concerned with the asynchronous startup aspect of the target Actor. However, due to this asynchronous startup, it is possible that the new Actor cannot be started at all; in this event all messages intended for the new target Actor will be handled as described in the Dead Letter Handling section.

self.send(targetAddress, message)

This is the method used to send a message from the current Actor to another Actor as identified by the targetAddress. The message can be anything the current Actor desires, although most ActorSystem implementations will require that the message can be pickled by the Python pickle utility.

There is no response to the send, and the message is delivered to the target asynchronously. There is no guarantee that the target has received the message by the time the .send() method returns. The ActorSystem delivers the message at some point by best-effort, sending the message to Dead Letter Handling if it cannot be delivered.

self.wakeupAfter(timePeriod, payload=None)

The timePeriod specifies a Python datetime.timedelta period. When this time period has expired, the ActorSystem will deliver a WakeupMessage to the Actor via the normal .receiveMessage() entrypoint (the sender will be the Actor itself). See Timer Messages for more information.

The payload argument can be used to specify a value that is held by Thespian and returned in the WakeupMessage when the elapsed time has expired. The payload can be used by the Actor to provide context for the wakeup operation. The payload value is arbitrary, but it is accrued against the actor's memory until it is delivered; hence, it is recommended to keep the payload reasonably small.

    self.handleDeadLetters(startHandling=True)

This method can be called to register or de-register this Actor for handling Dead Letters.

self.notifyOnSystemRegistrationChanges(startHandling=True)

This method can be called to register or de-register this Actor for handling system registration events from other ActorSystems (see Other Actor Systems) via ActorSystemConventionUpdate messages.

self.registerSourceAuthority()

This method registers the current Actor as the Source Authority handler for the current ActorSystem as described in the Security Considerations section of the loadActorSource ActorSystem API call. Once registered, this Actor will receive ValidateSource messages and be responsible for decrypting (if necessary) and determining authorization for loaded sources to run.

The current Actor continues as the Source Authority until another Actor registers for this role.

sourceHash = self.loadActorSource(fileref)

The loadActorSource() method is used to load a (possibly encrypted) zipfile containing Python source code in standard Python zipimport format (via PEP302¹ methodologies). The return value is an internally-generated hash value identifying that loaded source zipfile that can be used in subsequent createActor calls to instantiate Actors found in that sourcefile.

There must be a valid Source Authority registered (via the registerSourceAuthority method) to validate the loaded source; by default this method does nothing if no Source Authority has been loaded. See Security Considerations for more information.

See the description of the same function in the ActorSystem API section for more details.

self.unloadActorSource(sourceHash)

The unloadActorSource() method is used to unload a source zipfile previously loaded by the loadActorSource operation.

See the description of the same function in the ActorSystem API section for more details.

    self.notifyOnSourceAvailability(enable=True)

This method can be called to register or de-register (based on the enable argument) this Actor for being informed of loaded or unloaded source loads. Load notifications are delivered via the LoadedSource message and source unloads generate UnloadedSource messages to the notification registrant.

Registration is with the local actor system only, and notifications are only for loads and unloads of available sources in the local system; remote registration and corresponding notifications are available, but are not triggered by local load or unload events.

def actorSystemCapabilityCheck(capabilities, requirements=None):
    return True

This is a static method provided by the Actor object that is called to see if the Actor can be created within the context of the current ActorSystem.

The capabilities argument specifies the key/value dictionary of capabilities of the current ActorSystem. ActorSystem capabilities are free-form and are determined solely by agents specifying those capabilities (see ActorSystem Capabilities).

The optional requirements argument specifies the additional requirements that the creating Actor specified in the .createActor() call.

The .actorSystemCapabilityCheck() should return True to indicate that the Actor may be created in the current ActorSystem, or False to indicate otherwise. It is free to base this decision on any, all, or none of the capabilities or requirements provided.

This static method may also be called to re-validate the Actor's viability if the capabilities of its ActorSystem are updated (as described in the updateCapability section), and if it returns False then the existing Actor will be killed with an ActorExitRequest message.

The updateCapability() method is used to update the capabilities of the current ActorSystem this Actor is running in (there is a corresponding method on the ActorSystem for externally-specified updates; see the ActorSystem API for that version).

self.updateCapability(capabilityName, capabilityValue=None)

If the capability value is specified and is not None, the specified capability already exists, its value updated, otherwise it is created with the specified value.

If the capability value is not specified or is None, the specified capability is removed from the ActorSystem if it exists.

If the capabilities of the ActorSystem are modified by this method (i.e. the capability value is not already set as requested) then all Actors within that ActorSystem are re-validated by calling their actorSystemCapabilityCheck static method and sending them an ActorExitRequest if the capability check call returns false. This could result in killing the Actor that initiated the capability exchange, even if new capabilities are added. Actors may be recreated as desired; the new Actors will validate against the new set of capabilities.

The current set of ActorSystem capabilities can be obtained by issuing a Thespian_StatusReq to the ActorSystem.

The preRegisterRemoteSystem() method is used to inform the local ActorSystem about a remote ActorSystem.

This method is normally not used or needed, and should be avoided if possible.

Normally ActorSystems will communicate with each other and automatically perform discovery, and Actors themselves should not be aware or involved this functionality.

However, there are certain transport configurations where this auto-discovery is not possible. In these configurations, this method can be used to initiate communications between the two ActorSystems. This method will only work for ActorSystem bases that support Conventions (as describe in the Other Actor Systems section).

Because the remote System and the local System cannot perform auto-discovery, the local system also assumes responsibility for actively initiating convention membership checks of the pre-registered remote system. These pre-registration checks will continue to occur periodically until the pre-registered remote member is removed (via the deRegisterRemoteSystem() method described below). The current system will also automatically become the Convention Leader for the remote system.

self.preRegisterRemoteSystem(remoteSystemAddress,
                             remoteSystemCapabilities)

The remoteSystemAddress parameter is not a true Actor Address: it specifies the remote system address in string format in a syntax that will be interpreted by the local ActorSystem. If the specified string is not recognizeable by the local ActorSystem, no Convention membership will be added. For example, the multiprocTCPBase and multiprocUDPBase system bases can recognize "ipaddr:port" formats.

The remoteSystemCapabilities parameter specifies a dictionary of the initial remote system capabilities. These capabilities will be updated with actual capabilities once the two systems have established communications.

The deRegisterRemoteSystem() method is used to unregister a previously registered remote system. This method is the counterpart to the preRegisterRemoteSystem() method and has all the same warnings and caveats that apply to the latter.

If the remote ActorSystem is still running and communicating with the local ActorSystem then it will automatically re-register itself despite having been de-registered by this method.

If there is no remote ActorSystem registered for the specified address, or if the address cannot be successfully recognized by the local ActorSystem, this method will simply return with no effect.

self.preRegisterRemoteSystem(remoteSystemAddress)

The remoteSystemAddress parameter may be specified in the same manner as for the preRegisterRemoteSystem() and is usually the same value that was originally passed to the latter method. The remoteSystemAddress parameter may also be an actual ActorAddress (e.g. the same address that would be provided in the ActorSystemConventionUpdate messages).

The actorSystemShutdown() method can be called by an actor to shutdown the entire local ActorSystem, including all Actors currently running under that system. This method should not normally be needed and is intended only for situations where the local running system is being deactivated.

The shutdown operation will be initiated immediately: ActorExitRequests will be sent to all locally running Actors.

self.actorSystemShutdown()

Use this method with caution.

An alternative base class for creating Actors is the ActorTypeDispatcher which extends the Actor base class. The ActorTypeDispatcher defines a `receiveMessage` method that automatically determines the type of incoming messages and calls a receive method related to that type instead of the generic receiveMessage() called by the Actor base class. The type-based receive methods are named "receiveMsg_TYPE" where TYPE is the actual type.

class Typer(ActorTypeDispatcher):

    def receiveMsg_str(self, message, sender):
        self.send(sender, "Got a string")

    def receiveMsg_int(self, message, sender):
        self.send(sender, "Got an int")

This dispatching works for user-defined classes as well as built-in types, and will iterate through the base classes if a higher-level handler is not found.

class BaseMsg(object): pass

class ShortMsg(BaseMsg):
    def __init__(self, report = ''):
        self.report = report

class LongMsg(BaseMsg): pass


class Typer(ActorTypeDispatcher):

    def receiveMsg_str(self, message, sender):
        self.send(sender, "Got a string")

    def receiveMsg_int(self, message, sender):
        self.send(sender, "Got an int")

    def receiveMsg_LongMsg(self, message, sender):
        self.send(sender, "Got a long message")

    def receiveMsg_BaseMsg(self, message, sender):
        self.send(sender, "Got a message")

>>> asys = ActorSystem()
>>> t = asys.createActor(Typer)
>>> print(asys.ask(t, 1))
Got an int
>>> print(asys.ask(t, "1"))
Got a string
>>> print(asys.ask(t, LongMsg()))
Got a long message
>>> print(asys.ask(t, ShortMsg()))
Got a message
>>>

The `receiveMessage` method is defined by `ActorTypeDispatcher` so the actor subclassing it should not define that method; if the `receiveMessage` is defined in the subclass then it will override the `ActorTypeDispatcher`'s implementation and all message handling will revert to the subclass's `receiveMessage` method.

All exceptions generated by the ActorSystem itself are based on the ActorSystemException base class.

Exceptions which are generated as a result of unexpected failures within calls to the ActorSystem are based on the ActorSystemFailure base class. It is not expected that these are caused by an application error or that they can be retried and/or fixed by the application to expect a successful result.

The following shows the heirarchy of defined Thespian exceptions:

• ActorSystemException
  • InvalidActorAddress
  • NoCompatibleSystemForActor
  • ActorSystemFailure
    • ActorSystemStartupFailure
    • ActorSystemRequestTimeout
  • InvalidActorSourceHash
  • InvalidActorSpecification

actorSys = ActorSystem(systemBase = None,
                       capabilities = None,
                       logDefs = None,
                       transientUnique = False)

The systemBase argument should specify which ActorSystem implementation base should be used for this ActorSystem, as selected from those systems describe in the ActorSystem Implementations section. If systemBase is None, this call will check to see if there was a previous call to ActorSystem in the current process and if so, re-use the systemBase from the previous call. If there is no previous call, the default system base is the simpleSystemBase (see simpleSystemBase).

The capabilities argument should be a dictionary of capability keys and values as describe in the ActorSystem Capabilities section. These capabilities form the initial set of capabilities for the ActorSystem if it is started; the capabilities are ignored if an ActorSystem is already running.

The logDefs argument is used to specify a logging configuration dictionary (in standard logdict format). If not specified, a default logging configuration is usually supplied. If specified as False, then no logging configuration is supplied; this latter is useful in situations where another component is attempting to establish a logging configuration (e.g. nosetest logcapture). As described in the Logging section, the Convention Leader will receive forwarding of log messages at Warning level or higher, providing a centralized logging capability.

Normally the created ActorSystem becomes a process-wide (and possibly system-wide) singleton instance. The transientUnique argument may be set to true to get a new, un-registered ActorSystem. This leads to the following behavior:

ActorSystem(...)

return an object which references an ActorSystem with the configuration specified by the arguments, creating a new ActorSystem if necessary. Subsequent calls with the same arguments will get an instance referencing that same ActorSystem.

ActorSystem()

return an object which references any previous ActorSystem created by this process. If there is no ActorSystem, it will create one with the default parameters (currently defaulting to a "simpleSystemBase" instance). This is a convenience mechanism for accessing an ActorSystem that may have been created elsewhere in the application where more specific knowledge regarding the creation parameters was available.

          def start_system():
              cfg = read_config_file()
              ActorSystem(systemBase=cfg.system_base,
                          capabilities = { 'foo'=cfg.foo_capability, ...},
                          ...)

          def do_something():
              mine = ActorSystem().createActor(MyActor)
              r = ActorSystem().ask(mine, 'ready?', timedelta(seconds=3))
              ...

          if __name__ == "__main__":
              start_system()
              do_something()

The following is equivalent to the above, although it requires extra code to pass the actor system to the various components needing it:

          def start_system():
              cfg = read_config_file()
              asys = ActorSystem(systemBase=cfg.system_base,
                                 capabilities = { 'foo'=cfg.foo_capability, ...},
                                 ...)
              return asys

          def do_something(asys):
              mine = asys.createActor(MyActor)
              r = asys.ask(mine, 'ready?', timedelta(seconds=3))
              ...

          if __name__ == "__main__":
              asys = start_system()
              do_something(asys)

ActorSystem(..., transientUnique=True)

ensures that a new ActorSystem is created instead of retrieving a previously-created ActorSystem. Note that the other arguments should specify the configuration of the new ActorSystem, and global resource collisions (e.g. port names) will prevent the new ActorSystem from being created.

actorSys.shutdown()

The shutdown() ActorSystem method is used to terminate an ActorSystem and all Actors running in that system. If issued to a ActorSystem that is part of a multi-system Convention that ActorSystem is shutdown and the other Convention members are notified (but they continue to exist).

As described previously, the ActorSystem is a process-global singleton that may be a system-wide singleton, depending on the system base used (see ActorSystem Implementations for details). The shutdown() method is the proper way to stop those process-wide or system-wide ActorSystems when they are no longer needed. The decision of when to do this is left to the user; in some situations the ActorSystem should be a long-running service that matches the lifetime of the system itself.

If the ActorSystem was started with transientUnique = True, the shutdown() should still be used to properly stop the current ActorSystem, but any global ActorSystem registration will be unaffected by stopping the transient unique ActorSystem.

actorAddr = actorSys.createActor(actorClass,
                                 targetActorRequirements = None,
                                 globalName = None,
                                 sourceHash = None)

The createActor() method is used by external applications to request the creation of an Actor in the ActorSystem environment. This call is very similar to the createActor Actor API call except that this version creates "Top-Level" Actors and will block until the Actor is created and throw an exception on failures.

The actorClass argument can be specified either as a class object or as a module-qualified string identifying a class object (e.g. "foo.bar.BarActor" will search for class BarActor in the bar.py in the foo directory).

The targetActorRequirements argument is a value that will be passed to the actorSystemCapabilityCheck to use for validating whether the Actor can be started within the current ActorSystem environment (see ActorSystem Capabilities). The value specified for this argument can be anything the target Actor's actorSystemCapabilityCheck() method can understand, although typically it is a Python dictionary.

The globalName argument, if specified, should be a string specifying the "name" of the Actor within the ActorSystem. As describe in Named Actors, this name allows the Actor to be a system-wide singleton and to be uniquely identified and referenced in a manner additional to the ActorAddress of the actor.

The sourceHash argument, if specified, indicates a source file which should be prepended to the import path when attempting to load the actorClass source and start the Actor.

• The source file must previously have been loaded by the loadActorSource operation.
• If not specified, then the actorClass is expected to be found on the standard path. If the sourceHash value does not match any loaded sources then an InvalidActorSourceHash exception will be thrown.
• If the globalName argument is already specified and an Actor is running under that name, this argument is ignored, even if the running Actor did not come from the specified source file; otherwise the Actor started and assigned the global name.
• The specified loaded source file is merely prepended to the search list. If the loaded source file does not contain source for the specified actorClass but the standard path environment for the running Thespian ActorSystem does contain source for that actorClass, then the latter will be used to instantiate the new Actor.
• The source specified by the hash must have been loaded into the current ActorSystem, or previously have been obtained from a remote ActorSystem; this operation will not cause a query of remote actor systems to locate the source if the Actor cannot be found locally (the behavior of a createActor() call made by an Actor itself may be different).

This method may throw the following exceptions:

• NoCompatibleSystemForActor if it is unable to find an ActorSystem whose capabilities match the Actor's requirements.
• InvalidActorSourceHash if a source hash is specified that does not match any currently loaded source.

Tell is used to inject a message into the Actor system (targeting a specific Actor) without waiting for any response message.

actorSys.tell(targetAddr, message)

The targetAddr must be an Actor Address known to the current application (global Actors are useful targets in this regard).

The message may be anything that can be sent to a remote process (i.e. pickled).

The tell() operation does not await a response, but it may block until the send is completed.

Ask is used to send a message to an Actor (injecting it into the Actor system) and wait for a response message.

responseMessage = actorSys.ask(targetAddr, message[, timeout])

As with the tell() operation, the target address must be a valid Actor Address and the message can be anything that can be sent.

The "response message" is any message received by the local endpoint. The local endpoint looks like a normal Actor with an ActorAddress to the rest of the system. Any Actor sending a message to this address will cause the ask() operation to complete with that message.

If the timeout field specifies a non-None timeout value then the ask() will only block for the specified timeout period, returning a None value if the timeout has occurred. The recommended manner of specifying a timeout period is as an instance of the datetime.timedelta class, although an integer or floating point value will be accepted as a specification of a number of seconds.

Listen is used to wait for a message.

responseMessage = actorSys.listen([timeout])

The received message is any message received by the local endpoint. The local endpoint looks like a normal Actor with an ActorAddress to the rest of the system. Any Actor sending a message to this address will cause the listen() operation to complete with that message.

If the timeout field specifies a non-None timeout value then the listen() will only block for the specified timeout period, returning a None value if the timeout has occurred. The recommended manner of specifying a timeout period is as an instance of the datetime.timedelta class, although an integer or floating point value will be accepted as a specification of a number of seconds.

Just as with the ask() timeout, the listen timeout is not generally useful when using a simpleSystemBase actor base. The timeout will typically either be ignored while there is active work to be done, or the call will return immediately if the actor system is quiescent with no messages to be delivered.

The tell(), ask(), and listen() operations are used by external applications to communicate with Actors, but they only provide a single "address" for the external application. If the external application is multi-threaded, and different threads wish to communicate with actors, some mechanism to route responses to the proper thread is needed.

To accomplish this, the ActorSystem.private() method can be used to obtain a "private" context for a particular thread. While it exists, this context creates a unique endpoint for the external application's threads and ensures that response messages sent by actors are sent to the proper initiating thread.

The private() context is easy to use along with the with statement:

...
asys = ActorSystem()
...
[thread1:]
with asys.private() as mysys:
    r = mysys.ask(addr, message, timeout)
    if r is not None:
        mysys.tell(addr2, 'completed')
...
[thread2:]
with asys.private() as sys2:
    resp = sys2.ask(addr5, msg, timeout)
    print(resp)

In the above example, the response message sent by the actor at addr will properly be directed to thread1, and the response message sent by the actor at addr5 will only be sent to thread2.

The updateCapability() method is used update the capabilities of the ActorSystem. This is the external interface to updating capabilities; Actors can issue capability updates as well.

actorSys.updateCapability(capabilityName, capabilityValue=None)

If the capability value is specified and is not None, the specified capability already exists, its value updated, otherwise it is created with the specified value.

If the capability value is not specified or is None, the specified capability is removed from the ActorSystem if it exists.

If the capabilities of the ActorSystem are modified by this method (i.e. the capability value is not already set as requested) then all Actors within that ActorSystem are re-validated by calling their actorSystemCapabilityCheck static method and sending them an ActorExitRequest if the capability check call returns false. _This could result in killing the Actor that initiated the capability exchange, even if new capabilities are added._ Actors may be recreated as desired; the new Actors will validate against the new set of capabilities.

The current set of ActorSystem capabilities can be obtained by issuing a Thespian_StatusReq to the ActorSystem.

sourceHash = actorSys.loadActorSource(fileref)

The loadActorSource() method is used to load a (possibly encrypted) zipfile containing Python source code in standard Python zipimport format (via PEP302¹ methodologies). The return value is an internally-generated hash value identifying that loaded source zipfile that can be used in subsequent createActor calls to instantiate Actors found in that sourcefile.

There must be a valid Source Authority registered (via the registerSourceAuthority method) to validate the loaded source; by default this method does nothing if no Source Authority has been loaded. See Security Considerations for more information.

Although a plaintext zipfile may be loaded, it is highly recommended that production environments encrypt the zipFile using some sort of encryption methodology. The reasons for this are discussed in the Security Considerations section below; when an encrypted zipfile is loaded it is first decrypted and/or authorized as described therein.

The fileref argument can be a string specifying an input file path or it can be a file-like object. If the fileref is invalid or specifies a corrupted source file, then the returned sourceHash it is not added to the list of available sources, but there is no other feedback (excepting perhaps the /tmp/Thespian.log logfile).

actorSys.unloadActorSource(sourceHash)

The unloadActorSource() method is used to unload a source zipfile previously loaded by the loadActorSource operation.

This will not affect (i.e. stop) any remaining Actors running instances from that source, but it will prevent the creation of any new Actors from that source².

This effect of this call on running Actors' ability to access the unloaded source via imports or subseqeuent Actor creation is indeterminate: in some system bases this would fail, whereas in other bases this would succeed.

The sourceHash argument should specify the return value from a previous loadActorSource() call; if there is no source loaded with that sourceHash this request does nothing silently.

The PoisonMessage object is delivered to an Actor or to external code when message sent to an Actor has caused the target Actor to fail. The PoisonMessage is a wrapper around the original message that caused the failure. The originating sender receives this poison message indication to allow it to perform any desired cleanup or alternative work based on the target Actor failure (see PoisonMessage Returns).

The WakeupMessage is delivered to the Actor by the ActorSystem as a result of a previous call to the Actor's .wakeupAfter() method call (see Timer Messages).

The WatchMessage is delivered to the Actor by the ActorSystem when one or more file descriptors has available data. The WatchMessage specifies which file numbers have data available.

This functionality is not available from all ActorSystem implementations. See Watching File Descriptors for more information.

The ActorExitRequest object is sent to any Actor to request that Actor to exit. The Actor's receiveMessage() is invoked with the ActorExitRequest object to allow the Actor to do any internal cleanup; the cleanup must be completed because when the Actor's receiveMessage() method exits from handling the ActorExitRequest object, the Actor is killed with no further functioning.

The ActorExitRequest may be originated by the ActorSystem itself (e.g. a ActorSystem shutdown time) or it may be sent by any other Actor within the system.

The ChildActorExited object is delivered to the Parent Actor of an Actor when that Actor has exited. This is delivered regardless of whether the exit was due to the receipt of an ActorExitRequest message or if the Actor was killed by other means.

The Parent of Named Actors is the ActorSystem itself; no other Actor will receive a ChildActorExited message when a Named Actor exits.

Actors which were created by the external system via the ActorSystem interface will have no Parent; their exit is unremarked.

The DeadEnvelope object is delivered to the Dead Letter handler as described in Dead Letter Handling. The DeadEnvelope is a wrapper around the original message that could not be delivered to the target Actor because the target is no longer running.

The ActorSystemConventionUpdate object is delivered to an Actor that has registered to be notified on changes in ActorSystem convention membership (as described in Other Actor Systems). This message is generated by the ActorSystem itself.

The ValidateSource object is delivered to the registered Source Authority. The contents are the source file provided via the loadActorSource call to the ActorSystem. The Actor receiving this message should decrypt and validate the source to ensure that the source is authorized to run in the context of the current ActorSystem.

If the specified source is not authorized to run in the current ActorSystem, the Source Authority may either simply discard this message and take no further action, or it may send a ValidatedSource message specifying None as the validated source. The latter is recommended since it allows immediate response handling for pending actors for that source; otherwise a source load timeout must expire before rejecting actor create requests for the rejected source load attempt.

If the specified source is valid for running in the current ActorSystem, the Source Authority should return a zipfile containing the sources to the sender in a ValidatedSource message.

At the present time, only .py sources are utilized; any .pyc or .pyo sources are ignored if present in the zipfile.

It is important to note that the sources provided to the loadActorSource() call are not actually available for use in createActor() calls until the Source Authority has responded with the ValidatedSource message. If it is expected that the Source Authority will experience delays in validating the source, or that the attempts to use the loaded source will immediately follow the loadActorSource() call, the code calling the latter should implement a delay or an explicit validation of the results of the load via the Thespian_StatusReq operation.

This message is not sent by the ActorSystem to an Actor, but is instead sent by the Source Authority Actor back to the system as the response to a ValidateSource message. The data associated with this response is a zipfile in zipimport format providing the source file tree of .py files that were extracted from the input data sent via the ValidateSource message. By sending this message back to the sender, the Source Authority Actor is indicating that the associated contents are valid for running within the current ActorSystem environment (and any other ActorSystems that are part of the Convention).

At this time, only .py files are used from the loaded source: any .pyc or .pyo files are ignored.

This message may also be sent by the Source Authority with None as the data to indicate that the associated Source Hash is invalid and is being actively rejected.

The LoadedSource object is delivered to an Actor that has registered to be notified on changes in the loaded sources available in the local ActorSystem. This message is generated by the ActorSystem itself.

This message indicates that the associated source module has been loaded successfully and is now available for creating new actors. This message is delivered to each notifyOnSourceAvailability registered notification target on the local system when the source has been loaded on that system; remote loads will cause corresponding notifications to registrants on those systems at such time as the loaded source is provided to that remote system.

This message is also delivered for each loaded source that is present at the time of the registration (via the notifyOnSourceAvailability system call).

The UnloadedSource object is delivered to an Actor that has registered to be notified on changes in the loaded sources available in the local ActorSystem. This message is generated by the ActorSystem itself.

This message indicates that the associated source module has been unloaded and is therefore unavailable for creating new actors.

The Thespian_StatusReq object can be sent to any Actor (or to the ActorSystem…e.g. the Admin if the ActorSystem has one) to request Thespian-related status information. The status information is information from within Thespian itself; the Actor does not receive or provide handling of this message itself.

The response to the Thespian_StatusReq is either a Thespian_SystemStatus or a Thespian_ActorStatus message, depending on whether the Thespian_StatusReq was sent to an Actor or the ActorSystem.

The Thespian_SystemStatus object is returned by the ActorSystem with status information about that ActorSystem. The information in this message is informational only and subject to change: relying on specific fields or values in this message is not recommended.

The Thespian_ActorStatus object is returned by the ActorSystem with status information about that ActorSystem. The information in this message is informational only and subject to change: relying on specific fields or values in this message is not recommended.

The use of Actor Troupes is supported by importing the thespian.troupe file and adding a @troupe() decorator to the Actor definition. This decorator turns a regular Actor into a dynamic Actor Troupe, where multiple Actors are spun up on-demand to handle messages.

This pattern is especially useful for situations where multiple requests are received and processing individual requests may take some time to perform.

from thespian.troupe import troupe

@troupe()
class MyActor(Actor):
   ...

The optional arguments to the troupe decorator are:

• max_count is the maximum number of actors in the troupe (defaulting to 10).
• idle_count is the default number of actors in the troupe when idle. As work is received, the number of actors will grow up to the max_count, but when there is no more work, the number of actors will shrink back down to this number. Note that there may be fewer than this number of actors present: actors are only created if work is received and there are no idle actors to handle that work.

The decorator usage above works very well for a simple worker actor that can perform all of the necessary work utilizing only the message sent to it; the actor can be turned into a troupe member with no change other than adding the decorator.

The arguments to the troupe decorator are static and are applied at the time the Actor source is loaded. However, it is possible to update the max_count and idle_count for the troupe dynamically at any time using either text strings or the UpdateTroupeSettings object:

r = ActorSystem().ask(troupeActor, "troupe:set_max_count=9")
assert r == "Set troupe max_count to 9"

r = ActorSystem().ask(troupeActor, "troupe:set_idle_count=4")
assert r == "Set troupe idle_count to 4"

r = ActorSystem().ask(troupeActor, UpdateTroupeSettings(max_count=10, idle_count=4))
assert isinstance(r, UpdateTroupeSettings)
assert r.max_count == 10
assert r.idle_count == 4

Note that the adjustments of the troupe max and idle counts do not necessarily immediately reduce the number of running troupe workers if the counts are adjusted lower; troupe workers are reduced after the worker has successfully completed work. Increasing either of these counts should make more workers available immediately though.

An actor which must interact with other actors to process the work requires additional modifications to allow the troupe manager to know when the actor has finished performing the work. A troupe member that has not fully performed the work and is exchanging messages with other actors to complete the work (or awaiting WakeupMessages) must set the troupe_work_in_progress attribute on self to True. Once the work is completed by a subsequent message delivery, it should set this attribute to False, which will cause the troupe manager to be notified that the actor is ready for more work.

• Failure to set the troupe_work_in_progress attribute to True on a multi-step actor will result in either (a) the actor receiving more work before it has completed the previous work, or (b) the actor will be killed by the troupe manager before finishing the work because the manager believes the actor is finished.
• Failure to reset the troup_work_in_progress attribute to False will cause the troupe manager to never send any more work requests to the troupe actor, even if the latter is idle. The troupe actor will also never be killed until the troupe manager itself is killed.

Manipulating the troupe_work_in_progress member variable for non-troupe actors has no effect on their behavior and is safe to do.

Some actors should automatically die at some period after they are initially used, or after they are last used. These actors are referred to as "transient" in contrast to normal actors that will persist until explicitly shutdown (either by themselves or by another Actor).

Implementing transient actors is made easier by importing the thespian.transient file and adding a @transient() or @transient_idle() decorator to the Actor definition.

The transient decorator cause the actor to exit at some time period after it receives its first message.

The transient_idle decorator causes the actor to exit at some time period after it has received its last message.

Both decorators default to a period of 10 seconds, and both take an optional exit_delay argument value that specifies an alternate time period. The time period should be a datetime.timedelta object.

from thespian.transient import transient_idle

@transient_idle(timedelta(seconds=3, milliseconds=250))
class BoredActor(Actor):
   ...

@transient()
class TempActor(Actor):
   ...

Note that a transient actor which is created but which never receives any messages does not exit; the timer for transient exit is only started after receipt of the actor's first message.

It is common for an Actor to require one or more messages to "initialize" the Actor and prepare it for normal operations.

The thespian.initmsgs module provides an initializing_messages decorator that can assist with managing this initialization.

This pattern is especially useful for Actors which need to receive multiple different messages to initialize their state before normal processing begins. Each message is stored in a corresponding attribute on the Actor class, and (unless init_passthru is True) no messages are delivered to the receiveMessages entrypoint until all of the initialization messages have been received.

from thespian.initmsgs import initializing_messages
@initializing_messages(initset, initdone=None, init_passthru=False)

The required argument to the @initializing_messages decorator is a list of tuples, where the first tuple value is the name of an attribute to be set on this actor and the second tuple value is the type of the corresponding message. If the tuple has three entries and the third is True, then when the message type is matched, an attribute corresponding to the first element plus the suffix "_sender" is set to the sender of that message.

If multiple initialization messages of the same type are received, the corresponding attribute will be set to the last messages received.

The initdone argument, if set, specifies a method name (as a string) that should be called when all initialization message have been received.

The init_passthru can be set to True to pass all messages received during initialization to the normal Actor handling; the default is false and init messages are discarded and non-init messages are saved and delivered after initialization is completed. (All ActorSystemMessage messages are treated as if init_passthru was True).

Example:

    @initializing_messages([('init_m1', Msg1, True),
                            ('init_tgt', ActorAddress),
                            ('frog', str)],
                            initdone='init_completed')
    class FooActor(ActorTypeDispatcher):
        def init_completed(self):
            self.send(self.init_m1_sender, 'Running')
        def receiveMsg_Croak(self, croakmsg, sender):
            self.send(sender, self.frog)
            self.send(self.init_m1_sender, self.init_m1)
            self.send(self.init_tgt, croakmsg)

This actor will wait for three different initialization messages (Msg1, an ActorAddress, and a string) and store each as an attribute, as well as storing the sender address for the Msg1 message. When all three have been received, the init_completed method is called, and then all Croak messages cause three messages to be sent. Note that any Croak messages received before all three initialization messages will be stored and delivered after initialization is complete.

This decorator is incompatible with the @troupe decorator.

This decorator must appear before the @transient or @transient_idle decorator:

    @initializing_messages([('init_m1', Msg1, True),
                            ('init_tgt', ActorAddress),
                            ('frog', str)],
                            initdone='init_completed')
    @transient(timedelta(seconds=2, milliseconds=250))
    class FooActor(ActorTypeDispatcher): ...

The Thespian Director is a support utility that provides functionality that makes it easier to use the Loadable Sources functionality provided by Thespian. It is possible to use loadable sources without using the Director, but it's easier to use the Director to provide a base set of support functionality.

See the Thespian Director document for more information on the Director.

The thespian.runcommand helper module can be used to execute commands on the local system and collect results. This effectively encapsulates the Python subprocess.Popen functionality into an Actor which isolates the Popen operation, using messages to request the execution of a command and retrieve the results of the command.

See the docstrings in the thespian/runcommand.py file for more details and the test/test_runcommand.py file for example usage.

As described in ActorSystem Capabilities each ActorSystem has a set of capabilities that describe that ActorSystem and which can be audited by the Actor's actorSystemCapabilityCheck method to determine if the Actor is compatible with the ActorSystem. Many capabilities can be set when the ActorSystem is started (see ActorSystem), or updated at run-time (see updateCapability for either the Actor or the ActorSystem API); those marked read-only below may only be viewed, but not set or changed when the ActorSystem is started.

Each ActorSystem may specify capabilities unique to that ActorSystem and the application can add capabilities to that ActorSystem; in addition, the following common capabilities are defined for all ActorSystems:

Python Version

tuple

usage

read-only

description

This is set to the tuple value of the Python version under which the ActorSystem is running (this is the same value supplied by sys.version_info). Any Actors wishing to enforce any version restrictions use this capability to do so.

Thespian Generation

tuple

usage

read-only

description

This is the Thespian API functionality specifier as a tuple of two values: (generation, enhancement). The first value is the generation and indicates a major functionality level (which is not necessarily backwards-compatible with the previous functionality level). The second number is the enhancement value and is incremented when backwards-compatible functional enhancements have been added within the current generation. The generation value is monotonically increasing, whereas the enhancement value monotonically increases within a generation but resets to zero when the generation changes. The Thespian Release Notes should be consulted to determine what features are supported in what generations.

This value is also available to current code in the thespian.api import as the ThespianGeneration value; if this local value is different than the ActorSystem provides in the capabilities

Thespian Version

number

usage

read-only

description

This is the identifier for the version of Thespian running in the current environment. This is a single numeric value where later releases will have a higher (but not necessarily successor) value.

Thespian ActorSystem Name

string

usage

read-only

description

This is the name of the running ActorSystem implementation. It is encouraged that Actors are not written to be unique to any particular implementation, but this information is present to allow ActorSystem-specific capability verification.

Thespian ActorSystem Version

number

usage

read-only

description

This is the ActorSystem version as a single numeric value (similar to the Thespian Version capability. This value may be incremented separately from the Thespian Version to indicate an update in the underlying ActorSystem implementation. The value of a specific ActorSystem will increment, but different ActorSystems have different version namespaces and switching from one to another does not guarantee that the ActorSystem version will increment.

AllowRemoteActorSources

string

usage

optional settable

values

Yes, No, LeaderOnly

default

Yes

description

This capability specifies whether or not this ActorSystem will accept sources loaded via remote ActorSystems as described in the Actor Code Distribution section. Valid values for this capability are:

Yes

Any Actor Source validated by a Source Authority on a remote system can be run on this system as well (this is the default).

No

No Actor Sources from remote systems will be accepted locally.

LeaderOnly

Only Actor Sources provided by the Convention Leader will be accepted locally.

Any unrecognized value will be treated as No and will disallow sources loaded on remote systems to be used in the current ActorSystem. If this capability is not specified, the default is Yes which will accept sources loaded on any of the remote ActorSystems that are part of the Convention.

The simpleSystemBase implementation is primarily designed for Unit Testing and other very simplistic Actor environments:

• All Actors run synchronously in the context of the current process thread.
• It is possible for an Actor to modify global state referenced by other Actors (as a matter of principal, accessing global state is an anti-pattern for the Actor Model).
• It is possible for an Actor to modify the caller's version of the message (see Message Mutability).
• The actorSystemCapabilityCheck is not called for any Actors: all actors are created in the current ActorSystem regardless of their capability requirements.
• No support for Multiple Systems (e.g. Conventions)

Specifically, whenever an ActorSystem .tell() or .ask() is called, the message is passed to the target Actor and any subsequent actorCreate or message sends performed by that Actor are run in sequence, etc. recursively. When the .tell() or .ask() completes back to the caller, most messages have been propagated through the system and it has reached equilibrium.

There is one exception to the equilibrium state: pending wakeupAfter wakeups. These wakups may still be pending when the .tell() or .ask() returns, and will not be delivered in the background subsequent to that return. If the wakeup time period expires during a future call to .tell() or .ask() then the WakeupMessage will be delivered at that point. Wakeup periods that expire in the interim are not acted upon until a future .tell() or .ask(), and if no future calls of this type are made then those wakeups are never delivered.

The simpleSystemBase is commonly used for unit testing configurations; as such, specifying the logDefs constructor argument as False helps prevent this system base from interfering with any log capturing that is performed by the unit testing framework (e.g. nosetest logcapture).

The simpleSystemBase uses the following ActorSystem Capabilities:

Thespian ActorSystem Name

string

usage

read-only

value

simpleSystemBase

The multiprocQueueBase runs each Actor in its own separate process for a truly asynchronous system. The default Actor communication method is by utilizing multiprocess Queue objects. The Actors are constrained to the current system, which is unique to the starting process. There is no inter-system communications possible, nor sharing of the ActorSystem with processes that are siblings of the starting process (i.e. not started by the ActorSystem itself).

The multiprocQueueBase System Base is used between all processes that were created from the original creation of the SystemBase, but a new SystemBase is created by each initiating process and the Queues are unique between the different SystemBase elements. The lifetime of the ActorSystem is limited to the lifetime of the process that created it.

The multiprocQueueBase uses Python's multiprocess Queue objects, but due to the fact that these Queues can only be passed by direct process inheritance and not via pickling, this system base can be somewhat inefficent due to the manner in which this implementation must route messages through a chain of actor processes from source to destination.

The multiprocQueueBase can only be used for communications on the current system and not for inter-system communications. The multiprocQueueBase does not support the use of multiple ActorSystems in a Convention as described in Multiple Systems.

The multiprocQueueBase uses the following ActorSystem Capabilities:

Thespian ActorSystem Name

string

usage

read-only

value

multiprocQueueBase

Admin Address

string

usage

read-only

value

ThespianQ

description

the address for the Admin queue. This is an arbitrary string value.

Process Startup Method

string

usage

optional settable

values

fork or spawn

default

fork (Unix), or spawn (Windows)

description

specifies the multiprocessing process startup method (see multiprocessing.get_context()). Supported values are "fork" and "spawn". The "spawn" method is generally slower because it creates each new process from scratch, but it provides better independence and isolation. The "fork" method is faster but can inherit memory and other resources from the parent, and it is only available under Unix. Note that the other multi-process bases support the multiprocessing "forkserver" method, but this multiprocQueueBase does not support the "forkserver" method.

The multiprocTCPBase runs each Actor in its own separate process for a truly asynchronous system. The default Actor communication method is by utilizing TCP socket connections.

The multiprocTCP SystemBase is shared between all processes that utilize the same Administrator coordinates, and can be used for inter-system communications. The lifetime of the ActorSystem exceeds that of the process that started it and persists until an explicit shutdown.

The multiprocTCPBase can be used for Actors on the same system or on other systems accessible via TCP/IPv4.

The multiprocTCPBase supports forwarding of logging messages (warning and above) to the Convention Leader if used in a multi-system configuration.

The multiprocTCPBase uses the following ActorSystem Capabilities:

Thespian ActorSystem Name

string

usage

read-only

value

multiprocTCPBase

Admin Port

number

usage

optional settable

default

1900

description

specifies the TCP port number upon which the ActorSystem will listen for new communications. Actors and the external systems do not need to access that port specifically: it specifies which port the ActorSystem uses internally for coordination of operations.

If a multiprocTCPBase ActorSystem is already listening at that port, then the existing system will be utilized; otherwise a new multiprocTCPBase ActorSystem will be started up.

Convention Address.IPv4

tuple or string or array of tuples/strings

usage

optional settable

examples

('123.45.6.78', 1923), 123.45.6.78:1923, host-a:1923, or 123.45.6.78

description

the IPv4 address of the convention leader's Admin. This should be specified either as a tuple of (hostname, portnum) or as a string of the form "hostname:portnum". The hostname may be a DNS name or a dotted quad IPv4 address (specified as a string) and references the host on which the Convention Leader Admin is to be found. The portnum is the Admin Port upon which that Admin listens; if not specified (no colon is found) then the port num defaults to the Admin Port setting.

If not specified, then this ActorSystem operates in isolation and cannot interact with other Actor Systems.

BETA

This can be specified as a list of convention leader addresses. In this mode, if a leader is shutdown, the remaining convention will shift to using one of the other leaders in the list (providing a measure of fault-tolerance/high-availability for the convention). This is currently BETA functionality and should not be used in production, as there are likely future code updates needed to handle any subtle issues that arise from this functionality.

Admin Routing

boolean

usage

optional settable

default

False

description

if this capability is present and has a true value, this indicates that all Actors in remote ActorSystems must send all messages to local Actors through the Admin. This is commonly used where the ActorSystem is running on a host node that has a firewall that only allows the Admin Port to have network ingress permissions.

Note that this capability has no affect on the way in which the Actors themselves are implemented; it only changes the way that the ActorSystem routes messages.

Outbound Only

boolean

usage

optional settable

default

False

description

if this capability is present and has a true value then it means that this ActorSystem (and all of the Actors within it) can only initiate outbound connections. Inbound connections are not supported.

This configuration may be needed for a system that is behind a firewall with very strict ingress rules but looser egress rules.

Specifying this capability as True will implicitly force "Admin Routing" to be true as well, regardless of the user setting. This is because it is impractical for this system to maintain outbound connections to all possible remote Actors, so it will maintain a persistent connection to other Admins only and forward packets via them using the "Admin Routing" functionality.

In addition, this system will not be able to join in conventions with other systems unless the other systems are declared via the preRegisterRemoteSystem() call, since they cannot initiate an inbound registration to this system.

Remote systems may encounter periodic delays in message forwarding messages to an Outbound Only system because they must await a connection establishment from that system (which may not occur until the next Convention Registration time period has elapsed). (This mode also requires socket re-use by the TCP transport, which is the normal operational mode).

Thespian Watch Supported

boolean

usage

read-only

description

If True, then an Actor may return the ThespianWatch object from its receiveMessage() method and be called back later when input is available on any of the numbered file descriptors passed in the ThespianWatch object.

Process Startup Method

string

usage

optional

values

fork, spawn, or forkserver

default

fork (Unix), or spawn (Windows)

description

specifies the multiprocessing process startup method (see multiprocessing.get_context()). Supported values are "fork", "forkserver", and "spawn". The "spawn" method is generally slower because it creates each new process from scratch, but it provides better independence and isolation. The "fork" method is faster but can inherit memory and other resources from the parent, and it is only available under Unix. The "forkserver" performance is between the other two, but closer to the performance of the "spawn" method.

At startup, the multiprocTCPBase will attempt to determine the local IP address to use for registering Actor Addresses:

• If a Convention Leader is specified, then it will be the address on which it can communicate with that Convention Leader.
• If no Convention Leader is specified, it attempts to identify a public address (i.e. one that can communicate with IP address 8.8.8.8).

In a situation where neither of the above is appropriate or yields a useable address, the THESPIAN_BASE_IPADDR environment variable can be set to the IP address to use before starting Thespian; setting this environment variable overrides any address probing above, and setting it to a network address that is not accessible from the local machine will result in the inability to run any Actors.

The multiprocUDPBase runs each Actor in its own separate process for a truly asynchronous system. The default Actor communication method is by utilizing UDP messages.

The multiprocUDP SystemBase is shared between all processes that utilize the same Administrator coordinates, and can be used for inter-system communications. The lifetime of the ActorSystem exceeds that of the process that started it and persists until an explicit shutdown.

As with most UDP-based exchanges, there is no guarantee that messages have been delivered. One effect of this is that it is often difficult for the ActorSystem to recognize that Actors have exited and so Dead Letter delivery is unreliable at best for this system base.

Additionally, the UDP-based ActorSystem can only exchange messages up to 64KiB in size. Larger messages will fail.

The multiprocUDPBase can be used for Actors on the same system or on other systems accessible via UDP/IP.

The multiprocUDPBase supports forwarding of logging messages (warning and above) to the Convention Leader if used in a multi-system configuration.

The multiprocUDPBase uses the following ActorSystem Capabilities:

Thespian ActorSystem Name

string

usage

read-only

value

~multiprocUDPBase

Admin Port

number

usage

optional settable

default

1029

description

specifies the UDP port number upon which the ActorSystem will listen for new communications. Actors and the external systems do not need to access that port specifically: it specifies which port the ActorSystem uses internally for coordination of operations.

If a multiprocUDPBase ActorSystem is already listening at that port, then the existing system will be utilized; otherwise a new multiprocUDPBase ActorSystem will be started up.

Convention Address.IPv4

tuple or string or list of tuples/strings

usage

optional settable

description

the IPv4 address of the convention leader's Admin. See the description of the same capability in the multiprocTCPBase for more details.

Process Startup Method

string

usage

optional

values

fork, spawn, or forkserver

default

fork (Unix), or spawn (Windows)

description

specifies the multiprocessing process startup method (see multiprocessing.get_context()). Supported values are "fork", "forkserver", and "spawn". The "spawn" method is generally slower because it creates each new process from scratch, but it provides better independence and isolation. The "fork" method is faster but can inherit memory and other resources from the parent, and it is only available under Unix. The "forkserver" performance is between the other two, but closer to the performance of the "spawn" method.

The multiprocUDPBase system base selects a local IP address to use for Actor Addresses in the same manner as described for the multiprocTCPBase above.

ActorSystem Startup

ActorSystem startup will inherit the permissions of the starting user. In many cases this is root to afford the actors the needed abilities to perform their operations.

ActorSystem Restart

This is the process of stopping an ActorSystem and restarting a new one. There are no restrictions placed on stopping an ActorSystem because this could result in unwarranted difficulties, and the ActorSystem can already be stopped in other ways (eg. process kill, etc.). Although it is possible for an attacker to stop the running ActorSystem and restart it, the resulting ActorSystem will only be running with the permissions it inherits from that starting user, and the protections detailed below still apply. This is not an effective attack vector for the ActorSystem.

Actor Injection

the use of the Source Authority (see registerSourceAuthority) and associated sourceHash values prevent the ability to inject bad actors into the ActorSystem.

Message Injection

Each Actor is responsible for any validation or verification of the messages it receives.

Message Interception

To protect messages from snooping, a VPN should be used or the configuration should select an ActorSystem base should be used that provides ssl-secured communications

Convention Source Injection

In this scenario, another member of the ActorSystem Convention that has been compromised attempts to inject bad Actor sources into the system. This is prevented by using the AllowRemoteActorSources capability to prevent injection of sources from ActorSystem hosts that are subject to compromise.

It is often desireable to deploy the Convention Leader into a more protected environment than may be possible for the remote ActorSystem Convention members and to use the AllowRemoteActorSources capability to restrict the use of newly loaded Actor Sources to only those Sources loaded on the Convention Leader system.

Actor Hijacking

e.g. sql injection attacks, buffer overrun, etc. These are the responsibility of the Actor developer, but remember the guideline: "Fail Early, Fail Often."