[Bug 1219786] Re: Frantic disk activity by check-new-release makes system temporarily almost unusable

[sfc]

Just ran into this problem on a Ubuntu 16.04.2 server, the check-new-
release process occupied the whole disk, causing 99+% iowait in top and
100+MiB/s disk read in iotop (normal HDD, not SSD), which almost freeze
the server.

kernel 4.4.0-33-generic

11:48:21 up 209 days, 16:33,  2 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.77, 0.68

              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            990         790          65          30         134          34
Swap:           495         495           0

After killed the check-new-release process, the server recovered from
freezing.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1219786

Title:
  Frantic disk activity by check-new-release makes system temporarily
  almost unusable

Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  A little while ago my system suddenly became extremely slow, to the
  point of being unusable for normal work. This went on for several
  minutes. The disk light was on constantly. On running iotop I
  discovered that the main culprit was a ".../check-new-release -q"
  process. This is one of many programs that periodically cause
  excessive disk reading/writing and bring my system to its knees for
  periods typically lasting several minutes. Together they constitute a
  massive usability problem.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
  Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 1:0.192.12
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-29.21-lowlatency 3.8.13.5
  Uname: Linux 3.8.0-29-lowlatency x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.3
  Architecture: amd64
  CrashDB: ubuntu
  Date: Mon Sep  2 13:16:36 2013
  EcryptfsInUse: Yes
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-08-22 (10 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Studio 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
  MarkForUpload: True
  PackageArchitecture: all
  SourcePackage: ubuntu-release-upgrader
  Symptom: ubuntu-release-upgrader
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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