[Lxc-users] Ubuntu /etc/init.d/xinetd kills container's xinetd

[Ulli Horlacher]

I have an Ubuntu LXC hosts with several containers running internet
services via xinetd.

Sometimes the container services died without any reason and no logfile
entry.  First, I thought LXC is not that stable as I hoped, but now I
found the bug inside /etc/init.d/xinetd !

The problem is: when I stop xinetd on the host with command
"/etc/init.d/xinetd stop" 
this stops all LXC container xinetd processes, too!

/etc/init.d/xinetd contains bad code which does not respect the xinetd
pidfile. See "man man start-stop-daemon":

  Note: unless --pidfile is specified, start-stop-daemon behaves similar
  to killall(1).  start-stop-daemon will scan the process table looking
  for any processes which match the process name (...)

The following patch prevents this unwanted behaviour:

--- /tmp/xinetd	2011-10-05 18:08:13.000000000 +0200
+++ xinetd	2011-10-05 18:23:19.000000000 +0200
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 DAEMON=/usr/sbin/$NAME
 PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
 
-test -x "$DAEMON" || exit 0
+test -x $DAEMON || exit 0
 
 test -e /etc/default/$NAME && . /etc/default/$NAME
 case "$INETD_COMPAT" in
@@ -47,18 +47,20 @@
     start)
         checkportmap
         log_daemon_msg "Starting internet superserver" "$NAME"
-        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --exec "$DAEMON" -- \
-            -pidfile "$PIDFILE" $XINETD_OPTS
+        start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile $PIDFILE --quiet --background \
+                          --exec $DAEMON -- -pidfile $PIDFILE $XINETD_OPTS
         log_end_msg $?
         ;;
     stop)
         log_daemon_msg "Stopping internet superserver" "$NAME"
-        start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 3 --quiet --oknodo --exec "$DAEMON"
+        start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PIDFILE --signal 3 --quiet \
+                          --oknodo --exec $DAEMON
         log_end_msg $?
         ;;
     reload)
         log_daemon_msg "Reloading internet superserver configuration" "$NAME"
-        start-stop-daemon --stop --signal 1 --quiet --oknodo --exec "$DAEMON"
+        start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile $PIDFILE --signal 1 --quiet \
+                          --oknodo --exec $DAEMON
         log_end_msg $?
         ;;
     restart|force-reload)
@@ -66,7 +68,7 @@
         $0 start
         ;;
     status)
-	status_of_proc -p "$PIDFILE" "$DAEMON" xinetd && exit 0 || exit $?
+	status_of_proc -p $PIDFILE $DAEMON xinetd && exit 0 || exit $?
 	;;
     *)
         echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/xinetd {start|stop|reload|force-reload|restart|status}"


-- 
Ullrich Horlacher              Server- und Arbeitsplatzsysteme
Rechenzentrum                  E-Mail: horlacher at rus.uni-stuttgart.de
Universitaet Stuttgart         Tel:    ++49-711-685-65868
Allmandring 30                 Fax:    ++49-711-682357
70550 Stuttgart (Germany)      WWW:    http://www.rus.uni-stuttgart.de/