[Bug 2003851] Re: occasional hanging 'apt-get update' from daily cronjob since Jammy 22.04

Mikko Rantalainen 2003851 at bugs.launchpad.net
Tue May 7 08:36:21 UTC 2024


This sounds like a race condition that leads to live lock, considering
that both gpgv and apt are waiting for the other end to speak at the
same time.

I assume the protocol between these is custom made for this connection.
How the protocol is supposed to prevent this live lock situation from
happening? If the protocol cannot avoid this situation, then the bug is
in the protocol design and the least invasive fix is to add timeout for
the waiting time and consider the execution as failed if timeout is
triggered.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2003851

Title:
  occasional hanging 'apt-get update' from daily cronjob since Jammy
  22.04

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Hi!

  Yesterday I spotted several machines of ours where a period `apt-get
  update` was stalled. The `http` children were hanging in `WaitFd`
  (waiting for parent instructions/queue). The parent was looping in
  `AcquireUpdate` every 500ms.

  
  We have a cronjob that runs every few hours which calls `apt-get update` and does some post-processing. We noticed that several of them had stalled at some point in time. Killing the parent (apt-get) got it unstuck, removing the locks.

  Example:
  ```
  # apt-get update
  Reading package lists... Done
  E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock. It is held by process 154026 (apt-get)
  N: Be aware that removing the lock file is not a solution and may break your system.
  E: Unable to lock directory /var/lib/apt/lists/
  ```

  Task listing:
  ```
  root      153929  \_ /usr/sbin/CRON -f -P
  root      153942      \_ /bin/sh -c  [ -x /etc/zabbix/scripts/dpkg.updates ] && /etc/zabbix/scripts/dpkg.updates --cron
  root      153943          \_ /bin/sh /etc/zabbix/scripts/dpkg.updates --cron
  root      154026              \_ apt-get update
  _apt      154029                  \_ /usr/lib/apt/methods/http
  _apt      154030                  \_ /usr/lib/apt/methods/http
  _apt      154031                  \_ /usr/lib/apt/methods/http
  _apt      154033                  \_ /usr/lib/apt/methods/gpgv
  ```
  Open (TCP) sockets. All have 1 item in the Recv-Q (probably a FIN or RST?):
  ```
  # netstat -apn | grep -E '154026|154029|154030|154031|154033'
  tcp  1  0  10.x.x.x:60868  217.x.x.x:80  CLOSE_WAIT  154030/http         
  tcp  1  0  10.x.x.x:40756  178.x.x.x:80  CLOSE_WAIT  154029/http         
  tcp  1  0  10.x.x.x:56818  185.x.x.x:80  CLOSE_WAIT  154031/http         
  ```
  All children (including gpgv) were waiting using pselect6(1, [0], NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL).

  The parent (apt-get) was waiting using pselect6(10, [5 6 7 9], [],
  NULL, {tv_sec=0, tv_nsec=500000000}, NULL).

  The http sockets in the children were at fd=3.

  Parent lsof:
  ```
  # lsof -p 154026 +E
  ...
  apt-get   154026 root    4uW  REG    8,1        0  262281 /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
  apt-get   154026 root    5r  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015176 pipe 154029,http,1w
  apt-get   154026 root    6r  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4012448 pipe 154030,http,1w
  apt-get   154026 root    7r  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015192 pipe 154031,http,1w
  apt-get   154026 root    8w  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015177 pipe 154029,http,0r
  apt-get   154026 root    9r  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015233 pipe 154033,gpgv,1w
  apt-get   154026 root   10w  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4012449 pipe 154030,http,0r
  apt-get   154026 root   12w  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015193 pipe 154031,http,0r
  apt-get   154026 root   14w  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015234 pipe 154033,gpgv,0r
  http      154029 _apt    0r  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015177 pipe 154026,apt-get,8w
  http      154029 _apt    1w  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015176 pipe 154026,apt-get,5r
  http      154030 _apt    0r  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4012449 pipe 154026,apt-get,10w
  http      154030 _apt    1w  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4012448 pipe 154026,apt-get,6r
  http      154031 _apt    0r  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015193 pipe 154026,apt-get,12w
  http      154031 _apt    1w  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015192 pipe 154026,apt-get,7r
  gpgv      154033 _apt    0r  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015234 pipe 154026,apt-get,14w
  gpgv      154033 _apt    1w  FIFO   0,13      0t0 4015233 pipe 154026,apt-get,9r
  ```
  So:
  - apt-get is waiting for any data written by any of its four children (at fd 5/6/7/9)
  - http and gpgv are waiting for any data written by their parent (at their respective fd 0)

  Parent backtrace:
  ```
  #0  0x00007f420116a74d in select ()
     from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
  #1  0x00007f420153fb5d in pkgAcquire::Run(int) ()
     from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.6.0
  #2  0x00007f420161d535 in AcquireUpdate(pkgAcquire&, int, bool, bool) ()
     from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.6.0
  #3  0x00007f420161d986 in ListUpdate(pkgAcquireStatus&, pkgSourceList&, int) ()
     from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.6.0
  #4  0x00007f42016d127b in DoUpdate (CmdL=...)
      at ./apt-private/private-update.cc:73
  #5  0x00007f420156d73f in CommandLine::DispatchArg(CommandLine::Dispatch const*, bool) ()
     from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.6.0
  #6  0x00007f420169fa97 in DispatchCommandLine (CmdL=..., 
      Cmds=std::vector of length 27, capacity 32 = {...})
      at ./apt-private/private-cmndline.cc:588
  #7  0x0000561fc06bafbd in main (argc=2, argv=0x7ffc0e14aa38)
      at ./cmdline/apt-get.cc:447
  ```
  Child backtrace:
  ```
  #0  0x00007f58b1c9b74d in select ()
     from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
  #1  0x00007f58b237cb43 in WaitFd(int, bool, unsigned long) ()
     from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.6.0
  #2  0x00005643e37bc7b3 in BaseHttpMethod::Loop (
      this=0x7ffdeaed56c0) at ./methods/basehttp.cc:611
  #3  main (argv=<optimized out>) at ./methods/http.cc:1052
  ```
  Where this is:
  ```
  (gdb) print *this
  $1 = {<aptAuthConfMethod> = {<aptMethod> = {<pkgAcqMethod> = {<No data fields>}, <aptConfigWrapperForMethods> = {
          methodNames = std::vector of length 2, capacity 2 = {
            "http", "http::XXXXXX.nl"}}, Binary = "http", 
        SeccompFlags = 6}, 
      authconfs = std::vector of length 1, capacity 1 = {
        std::unique_ptr<FileFd> = {get() = 0x5643e5343100}}}, 
    Server = std::unique_ptr<ServerState> = {
      get() = 0x5643e534fba0}, NextURI = "", 
    AllowRedirect = true, Debug = false, PipelineDepth = 10, 
    static FailFile = {static npos = 18446744073709551615, 
      _M_dataplus = {<std::allocator<char>> = {<__gnu_cxx::new_allocator<char>> = {<No data fields>}, <No data fields>}, 
        _M_p = 0x5643e534d650 "/var/lib/apt/lists/partial/apt.osso.nl_ubuntu-security_dists_jammy-security_InRelease"}, 
      _M_string_length = 85, {
        _M_local_buf = "\226", '\000' <repeats 14 times>, 
        _M_allocated_capacity = 150}}, static FailFd = -1, 
    static FailTime = 1674071760}
  ```

  Relevant code in parent:
  ```
  pkgAcquire::RunResult pkgAcquire::Run(int PulseInterval)
  {
  ...
     // Run till all things have been acquired
     struct timeval tv = SteadyDurationToTimeVal(std::chrono::microseconds(PulseInterval));
     while (ToFetch > 0)
  ...
        int Res;
        do
        {
           Res = select(Highest+1,&RFds,&WFds,0,&tv);
        }
        while (Res < 0 && errno == EINTR);
  ```
  Relevant code in child:
  ```
  int BaseHttpMethod::Loop()
  {
     signal(SIGTERM,SigTerm);
     signal(SIGINT,SigTerm);
     
     Server = 0;
     
     int FailCounter = 0;
     while (1)
     {      
        // We have no commands, wait for some to arrive
        if (Queue == 0)
        {
           if (WaitFd(STDIN_FILENO) == false)
              return 0;
  ```

  Versions:
  ```
  Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
  apt 2.4.8
  ```

  Preliminiary conclusion/notes:

  - I don't know why it stalls, but it does. And this was not a single
  incident. All the stalling apt processes had stopped at a different
  time/day.

  - Apparently there is a situation possible where there are no commands
  queued from the parent, and the parent isn't planning on sending any
  either.

  - Our apt-get is invoked by a cron job which calls either `update-
  notifier-common` or `apt-get update`:
  https://github.com/ossobv/zabbix-agent-
  osso/blob/c61aee6087c0d03e66d03013c61acd9f65d0eaab/scripts/dpkg.updates#L14-L31
  -- on the machines where apt-get was hanging, there was no `update-
  notifier-common`.

  - I don't know if this is 2.4.x related (on Focal we have apt 2.0.x),
  but it sure looks like it. I did check a few other Focal machines that
  lacked `update-notifier-common`, but they were not having a stalled
  apt-get (although _not_ seeing a hung process proves nothing)

  
  Let me know if there's anything I can get you. Should this be filed elsewhere? (Debian Salsa?)

  Cheers,
  Walter Doekes
  OSSO B.V.

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