[Bug 1215911] [NEW] wait-for-root fails to wait for plain /dev/sdaX partitions.

[Tetsuo Handa]

Public bug reported:

Moving the discussion from http://www.spinics.net/lists/hotplug/msg05769.html
to launchpad, for I think that this bug needs to be handled in initramfs-tools
package rather than in udev package.

----------

I'm experiencing random boot failures with wait-for-root utility in Ubuntu
12.04 ( ubuntu-12.04-server-amd64.iso ) on a HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 server.

For example, wait-for-root waited for only 0.13 seconds before giving up
at

  FSTYPE=$(wait-for-root "${ROOT}" ${ROOTDELAY:-30})

line in scripts/local in the initramfs, and  immediately enters into

  panic "ALERT!  ${ROOT} does not exist.  Dropping to a shell!"

line.

This is a race condition and manually entering "exit" from the panic prompt
boots the system normally. This is a critical bug for this environment because
it will randomly fail to perform unattended reboot (e.g. automatic reboot after
saving kdump).

----------

I examined main() in wait-for-root using debug fprintf() and it turned out that
udev_monitor_receive_device() is sometimes immediately returning NULL (although
wait-for-root is using blocking socket).

I examined udev_monitor_receive_device() in libudev.so.0 using debug fprintf()
and it turned out that recvmsg() in udev_monitor_receive_device() (which is in
libudev-monitor.c in udev package) is returning ENOBUFS error before recvmsg()
returns information of the root partition.

The wait-for-root utility in initramfs-tools package is not expecting recvmsg()
to return ENOBUFS error. But since ENOBUFS is an inevitable error, I think that
wait-for-root (i.e. the caller of udev_monitor_receive_device()) should handle
this error.

** Affects: initramfs-tools (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1215911

Title:
  wait-for-root fails to wait for plain /dev/sdaX partitions.

Status in “initramfs-tools” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Moving the discussion from http://www.spinics.net/lists/hotplug/msg05769.html
  to launchpad, for I think that this bug needs to be handled in initramfs-tools
  package rather than in udev package.

  ----------

  I'm experiencing random boot failures with wait-for-root utility in Ubuntu
  12.04 ( ubuntu-12.04-server-amd64.iso ) on a HP ProLiant DL360p Gen8 server.

  For example, wait-for-root waited for only 0.13 seconds before giving
  up at

    FSTYPE=$(wait-for-root "${ROOT}" ${ROOTDELAY:-30})

  line in scripts/local in the initramfs, and  immediately enters into

    panic "ALERT!  ${ROOT} does not exist.  Dropping to a shell!"

  line.

  This is a race condition and manually entering "exit" from the panic prompt
  boots the system normally. This is a critical bug for this environment because
  it will randomly fail to perform unattended reboot (e.g. automatic reboot after
  saving kdump).

  ----------

  I examined main() in wait-for-root using debug fprintf() and it turned out that
  udev_monitor_receive_device() is sometimes immediately returning NULL (although
  wait-for-root is using blocking socket).

  I examined udev_monitor_receive_device() in libudev.so.0 using debug fprintf()
  and it turned out that recvmsg() in udev_monitor_receive_device() (which is in
  libudev-monitor.c in udev package) is returning ENOBUFS error before recvmsg()
  returns information of the root partition.

  The wait-for-root utility in initramfs-tools package is not expecting recvmsg()
  to return ENOBUFS error. But since ENOBUFS is an inevitable error, I think that
  wait-for-root (i.e. the caller of udev_monitor_receive_device()) should handle
  this error.

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