Bug#604902: apt-cacher: random segfaults in libperl when clients are accessing cache

[Milan P. Stanic]

On Fri, 2011-01-28 at 22:26, Niko Tyni wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 07:04:32PM +0100, Milan P. Stanic wrote:
> > On Tue, 2010-12-21 at 09:10, Niko Tyni wrote:
> > > On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 10:26:18AM +0100, Schoepflin, Markus wrote:
> 
> > > > No further segmentation faults of apt-cacher have been observed up to
> > > > now. Looks like the suggested patch does indeed solve the observed
> > > > problem.
> > > 
> > > Great, thanks for the testing! It's too late to get this in the upcoming
> > > Squeeze release. It's possible that it can make it into the first point
> > > release (r1) - I'll talk to the release team about that.
> > 
> > I have written application which started to segfault when I upgraded to
> > 5.10.1-17 (maybe earlier but I didn't noticed it).
> > 
> > Application uses threads (it can have bugs) and it segfaults when call
> > my own module which uses SOAP::Lite. The same application worked without
> > (at least visible bugs) before I upgraded perl.
> 
> Why do you think your segfault has the same cause as the one discussed
> in this bug? Is the backtrace similar? AFAIK the 'crash when receiving
> a signal after perl_destruct()' issue is not a regression from 5.10.0
> (the lenny version.)

I am not sure. I have no idea if the bugs are same. Just thought that
they are related because the bugs looks similar to me.
 
> In case you are seeing a separate issue, please file a new bug, preferably
> with a minimal recipe for reproduction and a backtrace.
> 
> > It is not problem for me, I can build perl with mentioned patch but I'm
> > not sure is it ok to release squeeze with such bug. Perl should not
> > segfault because unexperienced programmer made mistakes in
> > script/programs.
> 
> Have you tried if the patch actually fixes your problem?

Yes. But even with the patched Perl the segfault occurs.

And this is the first time I have seen Perl segfault so I mistakenly
concluded that must be the same bug. Sorry.

> Traditionally Perl bugs that make the interpreter crash in limited
> circumstances have been treated as severity:important, not at a release
> critical severity. That doesn't mean they don't get fixed - for example,
> #596105 did make it into squeeze even though we had frozen already.
> 
> Obviously the severity will still vary with the circumstances, so a
> hypothetical bug that made sort() mostly nonfunctional would certainly
> be RC. Such issues would probably get mostly caught by the extensive
> test suite, though.
> 
> The release team has only been accepting RC bug fixes for a while now,
> and with the information currently available I don't think the 'crash
> when receiving a signal after perl_destruct()' issue makes the package
> unsuitable for release.
> 
> Hope this clarifies,

Yes, thank you.

-- 
Kind regards,  Milan