[Bug 1410558] Re: ps doesn't support "thcount" format specifier on Xenial

Thu Mar 5 12:40:50 UTC 2020

Hello Adrien, or anyone else affected,

Accepted procps into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be
available at
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/procps/2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.5 in a few
hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package.  See
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how
to enable and use -proposed.  Your feedback will aid us getting this
update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug,
mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from
verification-needed-xenial to verification-done-xenial. If it does not
fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the
tag to verification-failed-xenial. In either case, without details of
your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification .  Thank you in
advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s)
fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in
-proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

** Changed in: procps (Ubuntu Xenial)
       Status: In Progress => Fix Committed

** Tags added: verification-needed verification-needed-xenial

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to procps in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1410558

Title:
  ps doesn't support "thcount" format specifier on Xenial

Status in procps package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in procps source package in Xenial:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  ps -o thcount prints out an error (error: unknown user-defined format specifier "thcount")

  [Description]
  The Xenial version of procps has a bug in the thcount format specifier. ps doesn't recognize it, and complains about an unknown user-defined format.
  This is due to the format specifier table in ps/output.c, which is queried with a binary search. Since the "thcount" entry appears out of order in Xenial, it can't be looked up and the program fails with the "unknown user-defined format specifier" error.

  This has been fixed upstream by the commit below:
  - Fix for Bug:1174313 (3a52dfa34027)

  $ git describe --contains 3a52dfa34027
  v3.3.12~58^2

  $ rmadison procps
   procps | 2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2   | xenial          | source, ...
   procps | 2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.4 | xenial-security | source, ...
   procps | 2:3.3.10-4ubuntu2.4 | xenial-updates  | source, ... <--------
   procps | 2:3.3.12-3ubuntu1   | bionic          | source, ...
   procps | 2:3.3.12-3ubuntu1.1 | bionic-security | source, ...
   procps | 2:3.3.12-3ubuntu1.2 | bionic-updates  | source, ...

  Releases starting with Bionic already have this fix, so it's only
  needed for Xenial.

  [Test case]
  1. Boot up a Xenial environment with e.g. an lxd container:
  # lxc launch images:ubuntu/xenial xenial

  2. Execute ps with the '-o thcount' options:
  # lxc exec xenial -- ps -o thcount
  error: unknown user-defined format specifier "thcount"

  Usage:
   ps [options]

  For more details see ps(1).

  [Regression Potential]
  The fix just fixes the order of two entries in the format specifier array, so the regression potential is very low. Furthermore, the patch has been present and tested in up-to-date versions of procps since Bionic. Any new regressions introduced in Xenial will be checked with autopkgtest.

  [Original Description]
  In Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS (procps 1:3.2.8-11ubuntu6.3), the following worked fine:

  $ export PS_FORMAT=thcount
  $ ps
  THCNT
      1
      1

  In Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS (procps 1:3.3.9-1ubuntu2), it does not work
  anymore:

  $ export PS_FORMAT=thcount
  $ ps
  warning: $PS_FORMAT ignored. (unknown user-defined format specifier "thcount")
    PID TTY          TIME CMD
   6593 pts/1    00:00:00 ps
  16633 pts/1    00:00:00 bash

  Other PS_FORMAT specifiers still work fine (I have tried many, but not
  all).

  In real-life usage, a more complex PS_FORMAT would of course be used,
  such as
  PS_FORMAT=pid,s,thcount,nice,euser,egroup,etime,cputime,%mem,rssize:6,size:7,vsize:7,command

  Workaround: use nlwp instead of thcount (they are alias to the same
  data, and nlwp works fine in both versions).

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/procps/+bug/1410558/+subscriptions