Subject: Re: [vserver] [WARNING] rc script might wipe your guests
From: Jason Drage <jasond@ibsglobalweb.com>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:16:32 +1000

I don't see it on Ubuntu either.
The only hit on my filesystem is in the redhat vserver libs:

# locate rc.sysinit
/lib/util-vserver/distributions/redhat/rc.sysinit
/usr/lib/util-vserver/distributions/redhat/rc.sysinit

Which host distros does this affect?

-- Jason

John Alberts wrote:
> You're scaring the crap out of me!  Is this specific to a particular
> os?  I'm using vserver on RHEL and Gentoo, and I don't see this on any
> of my systems.
>
> John
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 8:31 PM, Herbert Poetzl <herbert@13thfloor.at> wrote:
>   
>> Folks!
>> This is a really serious issue!
>>
>> recent changes to various (sysv)init scripts might
>> wipe out your guests and their config on every
>> system reboot!
>>
>> here are the details:
>>
>> /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit (path might be different)
>> contain a line similar to this one:
>>
>> find -L /var/lock /var/run ! -type d -exec rm -f {} \;
>>
>> with the purpose to remove old files from
>> /var/lock and /var/run (which sounds like a good
>> idea, but the devil is in the detail)
>>
>> now util-vserver uses /var/run/vservers.rev to
>> store links to the configured/active guests like
>> this:
>>
>> lrwxrwxrwx  1  19 2008-08-07 14:23 42001 -> /etc/vservers/test1/
>> lrwxrwxrwx  1  19 2008-08-07 16:19 42002 -> /etc/vservers/test2/
>> lrwxrwxrwx  1  19 2008-08-06 11:50 42003 -> /etc/vservers/test3/
>>
>> and each guest config, contains a link to the
>> actual guest data, like this:
>>
>> lrwxrwxrwx  1  21 2008-08-07 16:02 vdir -> /vservers/test1
>>
>> the problem is in the -L, which means that find
>> will not only remove all files in /var/run, but
>> also follow all symbolic links and remove all files
>> there, which will include the guest config and
>> more important the actual guest data/files
>>
>> as Daniel Hokka Zakrisson did put it (quite nicely
>> IMHO) on the IRC channel:
>>
>> "I don't know what kind of crack-rock whoever wrote
>>     that smoked, but that's the problem."
>>
>> HTH,
>> Herbert
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
>
>