Skip to content

defunct processes, the possible explanation #74

Open
@sterchelen

Description

introduction

The following explanation is focused on using csi-s3 with goofys as a backend. All the components are in their latest version.
The issue I stumbled upon is the number of goofys Zombie processes.
The number doesn't have any importance in the understanding.

explanation

I looked in the csi-s3 code and more importantly at the FuseUnmount function and then at waitForProcess

func waitForProcess(p *os.Process, backoff int) error {
if backoff == 20 {
return fmt.Errorf("Timeout waiting for PID %v to end", p.Pid)
}
cmdLine, err := getCmdLine(p.Pid)
if err != nil {
glog.Warningf("Error checking cmdline of PID %v, assuming it is dead: %s", p.Pid, err)
return nil
}
if cmdLine == "" {
// ignore defunct processes
// TODO: debug why this happens in the first place
// seems to only happen on k8s, not on local docker
glog.Warning("Fuse process seems dead, returning")
return nil
}
if err := p.Signal(syscall.Signal(0)); err != nil {
glog.Warningf("Fuse process does not seem active or we are unprivileged: %s", err)
return nil
}
glog.Infof("Fuse process with PID %v still active, waiting...", p.Pid)
time.Sleep(time.Duration(backoff*100) * time.Millisecond)
return waitForProcess(p, backoff+1)
}

Due to the name of the function I was expected to see a wait4 syscall to consume the child process, in our case goofys.
If we look at the below outputs:

  • we have a goofys Zombie process with pid=32767
$ ps aux | grep goofys
root     32767  0.0  0.0      0     0 ?        Zs   Jun14   0:00 [goofys] <defunct>
  • its parent process the s3driver
$ pstree -s 32767
systemd───containerd-shim───s3driver───goofys

As s3driver launches goofys backend (I guess it is the case for the other backends 🤷🏼‍♂️), s3driver is the parent process. Then as a good parent 😃 it should wait4 its child to know what was its status.

In other words, there is a leak on child termination. The fix should be trivial; in the waitForProcess when the cmdLine is empty, we have to syscall.wait4 on the given pid.

if cmdLine == "" {
// ignore defunct processes
// TODO: debug why this happens in the first place
// seems to only happen on k8s, not on local docker
glog.Warning("Fuse process seems dead, returning")
return nil
}

wdyt @ctrox?

Activity

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions