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Original Project Description

As a consequence, there is currently no easy way to obtain a listing of all mounted file systems. This also means that commands like df can only work on explicitly specified mountpoints, instead of displaying the usual listing.

One possible solution to this would be for the translator startup mechanism to update the mtab on any mount/umount, like in traditional systems. However, there are some problems with this approach. Most notably: what to do with passive translators, i.e., translators that are not presently running, but set up to be started automatically whenever the node is accessed? Probably these should be counted among the mounted filesystems; but how to handle the mtab updates for a translator that is not started yet? Generally, being centralized and event-based, this is a pretty inelegant, non-hurdish solution.

A more promising approach is to have mtab exported by a special translator, which gathers the necessary information on demand. This could work by traversing the tree of translators, asking each one for mount points attached to it. (Theoretically, it could also be done by just traversing all nodes, checking each one for attached translators. That would be very inefficient, though. Thus a special interface is probably required, that allows asking a translator to list mount points only.)

There are also some other issues to keep in mind. Traversing arbitrary translators set by other users can be quite dangerous -- and it's probably not very interesting anyways what private filesystems some other user has mounted. But what about the global /etc/mtab? Should it list only root-owned filesystems? Or should it create different listings depending on what user contacts it?...

That leads to a more generic question: which translators should be actually listed? There are different kinds of translators: ranging from traditional filesystems (disks and other actual stores), but also purely virtual filesystems like ?ftpfs or unionfs, and even things that have very little to do with a traditional filesystem, like a gzip translator, mbox translator, xml translator, or various device file translators... Listing all of these in /etc/mtab would be pretty pointless, so some kind of classification mechanism is necessary. By default it probably should list only translators that claim to be real filesystems, though alternative views with other filtering rules might be desirable.

After taking decisions on the outstanding design questions, the student will implement both the actual mtab translator, and the necessary interface(s) for gathering the data. It requires getting a good understanding of the translator mechanism and Hurd interfaces in general.

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-04-17

<kuldeepdhaka> thinking how to get the listing. traversing would be
  ineffecient,   trying to come up with something better
<braunr> what listing ?
<braunr> and traversing what ?
<kuldeepdhaka> mtab
<braunr> well i assumed so
<braunr> be more precise please
<kuldeepdhaka> when the translator is done initalized      <translation
  info> are written to /etc/mtab      <translation info> will be provided
  by the translator, and when some one want to read the info just read it
  this way if their is some credentials like ftp sites pass username can be
  masked by the translator
<kuldeepdhaka> if some trans dont want to list them, no need to write to
  file    | while unmounting (sorry i couldnt find the right word) , it
  will pass the mount node address | <translation info> will have special
  structure to remove/add mounts example "a /mount-to /mount-from" = add
  , "r /mount-to" = remove    here "/mount-to" will be unique for every
  mount
<kuldeepdhaka> this have a draw back , we would have to trust trans for the
  listed data  | also "/mount-to" + "/mount-from" could be used a
  combination for making sure that other trans unable remove others trans
  mount data
<kuldeepdhaka> sorry but "also "/mount-to" + "/mount-from" could be used a
  combination for making sure that other trans unable remove others trans
  mount data"  this is a bad idea if we had to print the whole thing
<kuldeepdhaka> braunr, whats ur opinion?
<pinotree> you don't need a mtab to "unmount" things on hurd
<braunr> kuldeepdhaka: hum, have you read the project idea ?

<braunr> A more promising approach is to have mtab exported by a special
  translator, which gathers the necessary information on demand. This could
  work by traversing the tree of translators, asking each one for mount
  points attached to it.
<kuldeepdhaka> pinotree, not to unmount, i mean is to remove the
  <translation data>
<braunr> for a first implementation, i'd suggest a recursive traversal of
  root-owned translators
<kuldeepdhaka> braunr, hum, but it did stated it as inefficient
<braunr> where ?
<kuldeepdhaka> para 5 , line 3
<kuldeepdhaka> and line 6
<braunr> no
<braunr> traversing "all" nodes would be inefficient
<braunr> translators which host the nodes of other translators could
  maintain a simple list of active translators
<braunr> ext2fs, e.g. (if that's not already the case) could keep the list
  of the translators it started
<braunr> we can already see that list with pstree for example
<braunr> but this new list would only retain those relevant for mtab
<braunr> i.e. root-owned ones
<pinotree> i would not limit to those though
<braunr> and then filter on their type (e.g. file system ones)
<braunr> pinotree: why ?
<pinotree> this way you could have proper per-user /proc/$pid/mounts info
<braunr> we could also very easily have a denial of service
<kuldeepdhaka> but how will the mount point and source point will be
  listed?
<braunr> they're returned by the translator
<kuldeepdhaka> k
<braunr> you ask /, it returns its store and its options, and asks its
  children recursively 
<braunr> a /home translator would return its store and its options
<braunr> etc..
<braunr> each translator would build the complete path before returning it
<braunr> sort of, it's very basic
<braunr> but that would be a very hurdish way to do it
<kuldeepdhaka> shall /etc/mtab should be made seek-able and what should be
  the filesize?  content are generated on demand so, it could arise problem
  (fsize:0 , seek-able:no), ur opinions?
<braunr> kuldeepdhaka: it should have all the properties of a regular file
<braunr> the filesize would be determined after it's generated
<braunr> being empty doesn't imply it's not seekable
<kuldeepdhaka> content is generated on demand so, could cause problem while
  seeking and filesize, shall i still program as regular file?
<kuldeepdhaka> in two different read, it could generate different content,
  though same seek pos is used...
<braunr> what ?
<braunr> the content is generated on open
<kuldeepdhaka> ooh, ok

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-06-04

<safinaskar> how to see list of all connected translators?
<braunr> you can't directly
<braunr> you can use ps to list processes and guess which are translators
<braunr> (e.g. everything starting with /hurd/)
<braunr> a recursive call to obtain such a list would be useful
<braunr> similar to what's needed to implement /proc/mounts

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-06-25

In context of mig portable rpc declarations.

<teythoon> should I go for an iterator like interface instead?
<teythoon> btw, what's the expected roundtrip time?
<braunr> don't think that way
<braunr> consider the round trip delay as varying
<teythoon> y, is it that bad?
<braunr> no
<braunr> but the less there is the better
<braunr> we think the same with system calls even if they're faster
<braunr> the delay itself isn't the real issue
<braunr> look at how proc provides information
<braunr> (in procfs for example)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-06-26

<teythoon> so tell me about the more hurdish way of dealing with that issue
<teythoon> creating a specialized translator for this?

<braunr> you need to avoid thinking with centralization in mind
<braunr> the hurd is a distributed system in practice
<braunr> i think proc is the only centralized component in there
<teythoon> braunr: would having an mtab translator and having fs
  translators register to thae be acceptable?
<teythoon> that*
<braunr> teythoon: why do you want to centralize it ?
<braunr> translators already register themselves when they get attached to
  a node
<braunr> we don't want an additional registration
<braunr> have you read the link we gave you ?
<teythoon> I did and I got the message, but isn't the concept of
  /proc/mounts or a mtab file already a centralized one?
<braunr> that doesn't mean the implementation has to be
<braunr> and no, i don't think it's centralized actually
<braunr> it's just a file
<braunr> you can build a file from many sources
<teythoon> or if we do it your way recursing on fs translators *but*
  restricting this to root owned translators also suffering from
  centralization wrt to the root user? I mean the concept of all mounted
  filesystems does not apply cleanly to the hurd
<braunr> i don't understand
<braunr> restricting to the root user doesn't mean it's centralized
<braunr> trust has nothing to do with being centralized
<teythoon> I guess I'm not used to thinking this way
<braunr> teythoon: i guess that's the main reason why so few developers
  work on the hurd
<teythoon> also the way fs notification is done is also centralized, that
  could also be done recursively
<braunr> what doyou call fs notification ?
<teythoon> and the information I need could just be stuffed into the same
  mechanism
<teythoon> fs translators being notified of system shutdown
<braunr> right
<braunr> that gets a bit complicated because the kernel is also a
  centralized component
<braunr> it knows every memory object and their pagers
<braunr> it manages all virtual memory
<braunr> there are two different issues here
<braunr> syncing memory and shutting down file systems
<braunr> the latter could be done recursively, yes
<braunr> i wonder if the former could be delegated to external pagers as
  well
<braunr> teythoon: but that's not the focus of your work aiui, it would
  take much time
<teythoon> sure, but missing an mtab file or better yet /proc/mounts could
  be an issue for me, at least a cosmetic one, if not a functional one
<braunr> i understand
<teythoon> and hacking up a quick solution for that seemed like a good
  exercise
<braunr> i suggest you discuss it with your mentors
<braunr> they might agree to a temporary centralized solution
<braunr> although i don't think it's much simpler than the recursive one
<teythoon> braunr: would that be implemented in libdiskfs and friends?
<braunr> teythoon: i'm not sure, it might be a generic fs operation
<braunr> libnetfs etc.. are also mount points
<teythoon> so where would it go if it was generic?
<braunr> libfshelp perhaps
<teythoon> translator startup is handled in start-translator-long.c, so in
  case a startup is successful, I'd add it to a list?
<braunr> i'd say so, yes
<teythoon> would that cover all cases, passive and active translators?
<braunr> that's another question
<braunr> do we consider passive translators as mounted ?
<teythoon> ah, that was not what i meant
<braunr> i know
<braunr> but it's related
<teythoon> start b/c of accessing a passive one vs. starting an active one
  using settrans
<braunr> start_translator_xxx only spawn active translators
<braunr> it's the same
<teythoon> ok
<braunr> the definition of a passive translator is that it starts the
  active translator on access
<teythoon> yeah I can see how that wouldn't be hard to implement
<braunr> i think we want to include passive translators in the mount table
<braunr> so registration must happen before starting the active one
<teythoon> so it's a) keeping a list of active translators and b) add an
  interface to query fs translators for this list and c) an interface to
  query mtab style information?
<braunr> keeping a list of all translators attached
<braunr> and yes
<braunr> well
<braunr> a is easy
<braunr> b is the real work
<braunr> c would be procfs using b
<teythoon> oh? I thought recursing on the translators and querying info
  would be separate operations?
<braunr> why so ?
<braunr> the point is querying recursively :)
<braunr> and when i say recursively, it's only a logical view
<teythoon> ok, yes, it can be implemented this way, so we construct the
  list while recursing on the translators
<braunr> i think it would be better to implement it the way looking up a
  node is done
<teythoon> in a loop, using a stack?
<braunr> iteratively
<braunr> a translator would provide information about itself (if
  supported), and referrences to translators locally registered to it
<teythoon> could you point me to the node lookup?
<teythoon> ah, yes
<braunr> eg., you ask /, it tells you it's on /dev/hd0, read-write, with
  options, and send rights to /home, /proc, etc..
<braunr> well rights, references
<braunr> it could be the path itself
<teythoon> rights as in a port to the translators?
<braunr> i think the path would be better but i'm not sure
<braunr> it would also allow you to check the permissions of the node
  before querying
<teythoon> path would be nicer in the presence of stacked translators
<braunr> and obviously you'd have the path right away, no need to provide
  it in the reply
<teythoon> true

<teythoon> braunr: if we want to list passive translators (and I agree, we
  should), it isn't sufficient to touch libfshelp, as setting a passive
  translator is not handled there, only the startup
<braunr> teythoon: doesn't mean you can't add something there that other
  libraries will use
<braunr> so yes, not sufficient

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-06-29

<teythoon> braunr: diskfs_S_fsys_set_options uses diskfs_node_iterate to
  recurse on active translators if do_children is given
<teythoon> braunr: I wonder how fast that is in practice
<teythoon> braunr: if it's fast enough, there might not even be a need for
  a new function in fsys.defs
<teythoon> and no need to keep a list of translators for that reason
<teythoon> braunr: if it's not fast enough, then diskfs_S_fsys_set_options
  could use the list to speed this up
<braunr> teythoon: on all nodes ?
<teythoon> braunr: i believe so, yes, see libdiskfs/fsys-options.c
<braunr> teythoon: well, if it really is all node, you clearly don't want
  that

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-01

<teythoon> I've ment to ask, the shiny new fsys_get_translators interface,
  should it return the options for the queried translator or not?
<braunr> i don't think it should
<teythoon> ok
<braunr> let's walk through why it shouldn't
<teythoon> may I assume that the last argument returned by fsys_get_options
  is the "source"?
<braunr> how would you know these options ?
<braunr> the source ?
<teythoon> I wouldn't actually
<braunr> yes, you wouldn't
<braunr> you'd have to ask the translators for that
<braunr> so the only thing you can do is point to them
<teythoon> well, the device to include in the mtab file
<braunr> and the client asks
<braunr> i don't know fsys_get_options tbh
<teythoon> well, both tmpfs and ext2fs print an appropriate value for
  "device" as last argument
<braunr> looks like a bad interface to me
<braunr> options should be options
<braunr> there should be a specific call for the device
<braunr> but if everyone agrees with the options order, you can do it that
  way for now i guess
<teythoon> one that could be used to recreate the "mount" using either
  mount or settrans
<braunr> just comment it where appropriate
<teythoon> I thought that'd be the point?
<braunr> ?
<teythoon> % fsysopts tmp
<teythoon> /hurd/tmpfs --writable --no-inherit-dir-group --no-sync 48K
<braunr> where is the device ?
<teythoon> % settrans -ca tmp $(fsysopts tmp)
<braunr> 15:56 < teythoon> well, both tmpfs and ext2fs print an appropriate
  value for "device" as last argument
<teythoon> 48K
<braunr> i don't see it
<braunr> really ?
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> what about ext2fs ?
<braunr> hm ok i see
<teythoon> % fsysopts /
<teythoon> ext2fs --writable --no-inherit-dir-group --sync=10
  --store-type=typed device:hd0s1
<braunr> i don't think you should consider that as devices
<braunr> but really translator specific options
<pinotree> agree
<teythoon> I don't ;)
<teythoon> b/c the translator calling convention is hardcoded in the mount
  utility
<braunr> ?
<teythoon> I think it's reasonable to assume that this mapping can be
  reversed
<pinotree> theorically you can write a translator that takes no arguments,
  but just options
<braunr> the 48K string for tmpfs is completely meaningless
<braunr> in fstab, it should be none
<pinotree> "tmpfs"
<braunr> the linux equivalent is the size option
<braunr> no, none
<braunr> it's totally ignored
<braunr> and it's recommended to set none rather than the type to avoid
  confusion
<teythoon> u sure?
<teythoon> % settrans -cga tmp /hurd/tmpfs --mode=666 6M          
<teythoon> % settrans -cga tmp /hurd/tmpfs --mode=666 6M          
<teythoon> % fsysopts tmp
<teythoon> /hurd/tmpfs --writable --no-inherit-dir-group --no-sync 6M
<braunr> i've not explained myself clearly
<braunr> it's not ignored by the translator
<braunr> but in fstab, it should be in the options field
<braunr> it's not the source
<braunr> clearly not
<teythoon> ah
<braunr> now i'm talking about fstab, but iirc the format is similar in
  mtab/mounts
<pinotree> close, but not the same
<braunr> yes, close
<teythoon> ok, so I'll put a method into libfshelp so that translators can
  explicitly set a device and patch all existing translators to do so?
<braunr> teythoon: what i meant is that, for virtual vile systems (actually
  file systems with no underlying devices), the device field is normally
  ignored
<braunr> teythoon: why do you need that for exactly
<teythoon> right
<pinotree> do they even have a "device" field?
<braunr> (i can see why but i'd like more visibility)
<braunr> pinotree: not yet
<braunr> pinotree: that's what he wants to add
<braunr> but i'd like to see if there is another way to get the information
<braunr> 16:05 < braunr> teythoon: why do you need that for exactly
<teythoon> well if I'm constructing a mtab entry I need a value for the
  device field
<braunr> do we actually need it to be valid ?
<teythoon> not necessarily I guess
<braunr> discuss it with your mentors then
<youpi> it has to be valid for e2fsck checks etc.
<braunr> doesn't e2fsck check fstab actually ?
<youpi> i.e. actually for the cases where it's trivial
<youpi> fstab doesn't tell it whether it's mounted
<youpi> I mean fsck checking whether it's mounted
<youpi> not fsck -a
<braunr> oh
<braunr> couldn't we ask the device instead ?
<braunr> looks twisted too
<youpi> that'd mean patching a lot of applications which do similar checks
<braunr> yes
<braunr> teythoon: propose an interface for that with your mentors then
<teythoon> yeah, but couldn't you lay it out a little, I mean would it be
  one procedure or like three?
<braunr> 16:04 < teythoon> ok, so I'll put a method into libfshelp so that
  translators can explicitly set a device and patch all existing
  translators to do so?
<teythoon> ok
<braunr> why three ?
<teythoon> no, I mean when adding stuff to fsys.defs
<braunr> i understood that
<braunr> but why three ? :)
<teythoon> it'd be more generic
<braunr> really ?
<braunr> please show a quick example of what you have in mind
<teythoon> i honestly don't know, thus I'm asking ;)
<braunr> well first, this device thing bothers me
<braunr> when you look at how we set up our ext2fs translators, you can see
  they use device:xxx
<braunr> and not /dev/xxx
<braunr> but ok, let's assume it's harmless
<teythoon> ok, but isn't the first way actually better?
<braunr> i think it ends up being the same
<braunr> ideally, that's what we want to use as device path
<teythoon> but you can recreate a storeio translator using the device:xxx
  info, the node is useless for that
<braunr> so that we don't need to explicitely set it
<braunr> ?
<braunr> what do you mean ?
<teythoon> well, fsysopts / tells currently tells me device:hd0s1
<braunr> for /, there isn't much choice
<braunr> /dev isn't there yet
<teythoon> ah, got it
<teythoon> that's why it differs...
<braunr> differs ?
<braunr> from what ?
<braunr> other ext2fs translators are set the same way by the debian
  installer for example
<teythoon> % fsysopts /media/scratch
<teythoon> /hurd/ext2fs --writable --no-inherit-dir-group /dev/hd1s1
<teythoon> here it uses the path to the node
<braunr> that's weird
<braunr> was that done by the debian installer ?
<teythoon> ah no, that was me
<braunr> :p
<braunr> $ fsysopts /home
<braunr> /hurd/ext2fs --writable --no-inherit-dir-group --store-type=device
  hd0s6
<braunr> so as you can see, it's not that simple to infer the device path
<teythoon> oho, yet another way ;)
<teythoon> right then
<pinotree> isn't device:hd0s1 as shortcut for specifying the store type, as
  done with --store-type=device hd0s1?
<braunr> but perhaps we don't need to
<braunr> yes it is
<pinotree> iirc it's something libstore does, per-store prefixes
<braunr> ah that sucks
<braunr> teythoon: you may need to normalize those strings
<braunr> so that they match what's in fstab
<braunr> i.e. unix /dev paths
<braunr> otherwise e2fsck still won't be able to find the translators
  mounting the device
<braunr> well, if it's mounted actually
<braunr> it just needs to find the matching line in mtab aiui
<braunr> so perhaps a libfshelp function for that, yes
<teythoon> braunr: so you suggest adding a normalizing function to
  libfshelp that creates a /dev/path?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> used by the call you intend to add, which returns that device
  string as found in fstab
<teythoon> found in fstab? so this would only work for translators managed
  by fstab?
<braunr> no
<teythoon> ah
<teythoon> a string like the ones found in fstab?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> so that fsck and friends are able to know whether a device is
  mounted or not
<braunr> i don't see any other purpose for that string in mtab
<braunr> you'd take regular paths as they are, convert device:xxx to
  /dev/xxx, and return "none" for the rest i suppose
<teythoon> ok
<braunr> i'm not even sure it's right
<braunr> youpi: are you sure it's required ?
<teythoon> well it's a start and I think it's not too much work
<braunr> aiui, e2fsck may simply find the mount point in fstab, and ask the
  translator if it's mounted
<teythoon> we can refine this later on maybe?
<braunr> or rather, init scripts, using mountpoint, before starting e2fsck
<braunr> teythoon: sure
<teythoon> there's this mountpoint issue... I need to run fsysopts /
  --update early in the boot process
<teythoon> otherwise the device ids returned by stat(2)ing / are wrong and
  mountpoint misbehaves
<teythoon> i guess b/c it's the rootfs
<braunr> device ids ?
<teythoon> % stat / | grep Device
<teythoon> Device: 3h/3d     Inode: 2           Links: 22
<braunr> do you mean the major/minor identifiers ?
<teythoon> I do. if I don't do the --update i get seemingly random values
<braunr> i guess that's expected
<braunr> we don't have major/minor values
<braunr> well, they're emulated
<teythoon> well, if that's fixable, that'd be really nice ;)
<braunr> we'll never have major/minor values
<teythoon> yeah, I understand that
<braunr> but they could be fixed by MAKEDEV when creating device nodes
<teythoon> but not having to call fsys_set_options on the rootfs to get the
  emulation up to speed
<braunr> try doing it from grub
<braunr> not sure it's possible
<braunr> but worth checking
<teythoon> by means of an ext2fs flag?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> if there is one
<braunr> i don't know the --update flag, is it new from your work ?
<teythoon> braunr: no, it's been there before. -oremount gets mapped to
  that
<braunr> it's documented by fsysopts, but not by the ext2fs translators
<teythoon> libdiskfs source says something about flushing buffers iirc
<braunr> -s
<braunr> what does it do ?
<braunr> teythoon: ok
<teythoon> braunr: so the plan is to automatically generate a device path
  from the translators argz vector but to provide the functionality so
  translators can set a more appropriate value? did I get the last part of
  the discussion right?
<braunr> not set, return
<teythoon> yeah return from the procedure but settable using libfshelp?
<braunr> why settable ?
<braunr> you'd have a fsys call to obtain the dev string, and the server
  side would call libfshelp on the fly to obtain a normalized value and
  return it
<teythoon> ah, make a function overrideable that returns an appropriate
  response?
<braunr> overrideable ?
<teythoon> like netfs_append_args
<braunr> you wouldn't change the command line, no
<teythoon> isn't that done using weak references or something?
<teythoon> no I know
<braunr> sorry i'm lost then
<teythoon> never mind, I'll propose a patch early to get your feedback
<youpi> braunr: am I sure that _what_ is required?
<youpi> the device?
<youpi> e2fsck surely needs it, yes
<braunr> a valid device path, yes
<youpi> it can't rely only on fstab
<braunr> yes
<youpi> since users may mount things by hand
<braunr> i've used strace on it and it does perform lookups there
<braunr> (although i also saw uuid magic that i guess wouldn't work yet on
  the hurd)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-03

<teythoon> I added a procedure to fsys.defs, added a server stub to my
  tmpfs translator and wrote a simple client, but something hasn't picked
  up the new message yet
<teythoon> % ./mtab tmp
<teythoon> ./mtab: get_translator_info: (ipc/mig) bad request message ID
<teythoon> I guess it's libhurduser.so from glibc, not sure though...
<braunr> glibc would only have the client calls
<braunr> what is "% ./mtab tmp" ?
<teythoon> mtab is my mtab tool/soon to be a translator testing thing, tmp
  is an active tmpfs with the appropriate server stub
<braunr> so mtab has the client call, right ?
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> then tmpfs doesn't
<teythoon> so what to do about it?
<teythoon> i set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to my hurd builds lib dir, is that
  preserved by settrans -a?
<pinotree> not really
<braunr> not at all
<braunr> there is a wiki entry about that iirc
<pinotree> https://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/hurd/debugging/translator/
<teythoon> yeah, I read it too once
<teythoon> ah
<braunr> on the other hand, using export to set the environment should do
  the work
<teythoon> yes, that did the trick, thanks :)
* teythoon got his EOPNOPSUPP... *nomnomnom
<braunr> ?
<braunr> same error ?
<teythoon> well I stubbed it out
<braunr> oh
<teythoon> no, that's what I've been expecting ;)
<pinotree> great
<braunr> :)
<braunr> yes that's better than "mig can't find it"
<teythoon> braunr: in that list of active and passive translators that will
  have to be maintained, do you expect it should carry more information
  other than the relative path to that translator?
<braunr> like what ?
<teythoon> dunno, maybe like a port to any active translator there
<teythoon> should we care if any active translator dies and remove the
  entry if there's no passive translator that could restart it again?
<braunr> don't add anything until you see it's necessary or really useful
<braunr> yes
<braunr> think of something like sshfs
<braunr> when you kill it, it's not reported by mount any more
<teythoon> well, for a dynamically allocated list of strings I could use
  the argz stuff, but if we'd ever add anything else, we'd need a linked
  list or something, maybe a hash table
<teythoon> yes, I thought that'd be useful
<braunr> use libihash for no
<braunr> now
<teythoon> braunr: but what would I use as keys? the relative path should
  be unique (unless translators are stacked... hmmm), but that's the value
  I'd like to store and ihash keys are pointers
<teythoon> stacked translators are an kinda interesting case for mtab
  anyways...
<braunr> why not store the string address ?
<braunr> i suppose that, for stacked translators, the code querying
  information would only return the topmost translator
<braunr> since this is the one which matters for regular clients (if i'm
  right)
<teythoon> wouldn't that map strings that are equal but stored at different
  locations to different values?
<teythoon> that'd defeat the point
<teythoon> I suppose so, yes
<braunr> then add a layer that looks for existing strings before adding
<braunr> the list should normally be small so a linear lookup is fine
<teythoon> yeah sure, but then there's little advantage of using ihash in
  the first place, isn't it?
<braunr> over what ?
<teythoon> over not using it at all
<braunr> how would you store the list then ?
<teythoon> it's either ll or ll+ihash
<braunr> uh no
<braunr> let me check
<braunr> there is ihash_iterate
<braunr> so you don't need a linked list
<teythoon> so how do I store my list of strings to deduplicate the keys?
<braunr> you store pointers
<braunr> and on addition, you iterate over all entries, making sure none
  matches the new one
<braunr> and if it does, you replace it i guess
<braunr> depending on how you design the rest
<teythoon> in an dynamically allocated region of memory?
<braunr> i don't understand
<braunr> your strings should be dynmaically allocate, yes
<teythoon> no the array of char *
<braunr> your data structure being managed by libihash, you don't care
  about allocation
<braunr> what array ?
<teythoon> ah, got it...
<teythoon> right.
<braunr> there is only one structure here, an ihash of char *
<teythoon> yes, I got the picture ;)
<braunr> goo
<braunr> d
<braunr> actually, the lookup wouldn't be linear since usually, hash tables
  have stale entries
<teythoon> heh... what forest?!?
<braunr> but that's ok
<braunr> teythoon: ?
<teythoon> the one I couldn't make out b/c of all the trees...
<braunr> ?
<teythoon> ah, it's not important. there is this saying over here, not sure
  if there's an english equivalent
<braunr> ok got it
<braunr> we have the same in french
<teythoon> I ran into a problem with my prototype
<teythoon> if an translator is set in e. g. diskfs_S_file_set_translator,
  how do I get the path to that node?
<teythoon> I believe there cannot be a way to do that, b/c the mapping is
  not bijective
<braunr> it doesn't have to be
<teythoon> ok, so how do I get *a* path for this node?
<braunr> that's another question
<braunr> do you see how the node is obtained ?
<braunr> np = cred->po->np;
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> the translation occurred earlier
<braunr> you need to find where
<braunr> then perhaps, you'll need to carry the path along
<braunr> or if you're lucky, it will still be there somewhere
<teythoon> the translation from path to node?
<braunr> yes
<teythoon> doesn't that happen in the client? and the client hands a file_t
  to the file_set_translator routine?
<braunr> the relative lookup can't happen in the client
<braunr> the server can (and often does) retain information between two
  RPCs
<teythoon> uh, I can access information from a previous rpc? is that
  considered safe?
<braunr> think of open() then read()
<braunr> a simple int doesn't carry enough information
<braunr> that's why it's a descriptor
<teythoon> ah, the server retains some state, sure
<braunr> what it refers to is the state retained between several calls
<braunr> the object being invoked by clients
<braunr> teythoon: what is the "passive" parameter passed to
  diskfs_S_file_set_translator ?
<teythoon> braunr: argz vector of the passive translator
<braunr> so it is a name
<braunr> but we also want active translators
<braunr> and what is active ?
<teythoon> not the name of the node though
<teythoon> active is the port (?) to the active translator
<teythoon> I guess
<braunr> fsys_t, looks that way yes
<braunr> i suppose you could add the path to the peropen structure
<teythoon> ok
<braunr> see diskfs_make_peropen
<teythoon> braunr: but translation happens in dir_lookup
<teythoon> in all places I've seen diskfs_make_peropen used, the path is
  not available
<teythoon> why did you point me to diskfs_make_peropen?
<teythoon> s/dir_lookup/diskfs_lookup/
<teythoon> diskfs_lookup operates on struct node, so the path would have to
  be stored there, right?
<braunr> teythoon: dir_lookup should call diskfs_make_peropen
<braunr> at least diskfs_S_dir_lookup does
<braunr> and the path is present there
<teythoon> braunr: right

<teythoon> hrm... I added a path field to struct peropen and initialize it
  properly in diskfs_make_peropen, but some bogus values keep creeping in
  :/
<braunr> first of all, make it a dynamically allocated string
<teythoon> it is
<braunr> not a fixed sized embedded array
<braunr> good
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> if you really need help debugging what's happening, feel free to
  post your current changes somewhere
<teythoon> there is a struct literal in fsys-getroot.c, but i fixed that as
  well
<teythoon> % ./mtab tmp 
<teythoon> none tmp ../tmpfs/tmpfs writable,no-inherit-dir-group,no-sync 0
  0
<teythoon> none tmp/bar ../tmpfs/tmpfs
  writable,no-inherit-dir-group,no-sync 0 0
<teythoon> none tmp/foo ../tmpfs/tmpfs
  writable,no-inherit-dir-group,no-sync 0 0
<teythoon> none tmp/foo/bar ../tmpfs/tmpfs
  writable,no-inherit-dir-group,no-sync 0 0
<teythoon> :)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-10

<teythoon> btw, I read getcwd.c and got the idea
<teythoon> however this situation is different afaict
<teythoon> getcwd has a port to the current working directory, right?
<teythoon> so they can do open_dir with .. as relative path
<teythoon> but all I've got is a port referencing the node the translator
  is being attached to
<teythoon> s/open_dir/dir_lookup/
<teythoon> and that is not necessarily a directory, so dir_lookup fails
  with not a directory
<teythoon> as far as I can see it is not possible to get the directory a
  node is in from a port referencing that node
<teythoon> dir_lookup has to be handled by all nodes, not just directories
<teythoon> but file nodes only support "looking up" the empty string
<teythoon> not empty, but null:
<teythoon> This call is required to be supported by all files (even
  non-directories) if the filename is null, and should function in that
  case as a re-open of the file.  */
<braunr> why do you want the directory ?
<braunr> 10:40 < teythoon> as far as I can see it is not possible to get
  the directory a node is in from a port referencing that node
<teythoon> to readdir(3) it and figure out the name of the node the
  translator is bound to
<teythoon> similar to what getcwd does
<braunr> that's out of the question
<teythoon> wasn't that was youpi was suggesting?
<braunr> you may have a lot of nodes in there, such a lookup shouldn't be
  done
<braunr> i didn't see that detail
<teythoon> "│   Concerning storing the path, it's a bit sad to have to do
  that, and
<teythoon> │   it'll become wrong if one moves the mount points.  Another
  way would
<teythoon> │   be to make the client figure it out by itself from a port to
  the mount
<teythoon> │   point, much like glibc/sysdeps/mach/hurd/getcwd.c. It'll be
  slower, but
<teythoon> │   should be safer.  The RPC would thus return an array of
  ports to the
<teythoon> │   mount points instead of an array of strings.
<braunr> yes i remember that
<braunr> but i didn't understand well how getcwd work
<braunr> s
<braunr> another scalability issue
<braunr> not a big one though, we rarely have translators in directories
  with thousands of nodes
<braunr> so why not
<braunr> teythoon: do it as youpi suggested
<braunr> well if you can
<braunr> eh
<braunr> if not, i don't know
<braunr> 10:47 < teythoon> │   it'll become wrong if one moves the mount
  points.  Another way would
<teythoon> yes, I know... :/
<teythoon> well, I'm not even sure it is possible to get the directory a
  node is in from the port referencing the node
<teythoon> as in, I'm not sure if the information is even there
<teythoon> b/c a filesystem is a tree, directories are nodes and files are
  leafs
<teythoon> all non-leaf nodes reference their parent to allow traversing
  the tree starting from any directory
<teythoon> but why would a leaf reference its parent(s - in case of
  hardlinks)?
<braunr> uh, for the same reason ?
<teythoon> sure, it would be nice to do that, but I dont think this is
  possible on unixy systems
<braunr> ?
<teythoon> you cannot say fchdir(2) to a fd that references a file
<braunr> do you mean /path/to/file/../ ?
<teythoon> yes
<teythoon> only that /path/to/file is given as fd or port
<braunr> when i pasted
<braunr> 10:49 < braunr> 10:47 < teythoon> │   it'll become wrong if one
  moves the mount points.  Another way would
<braunr> i was actually wondering if it was true
<teythoon> ah
<braunr> why can't the path be updated at the same time ?
<braunr> it's a relative path anyway
<braunr> completely managed by the parent translator
<teythoon> ah
<teythoon> right
<teythoon> it's still kind of hacky, but I cannot see how to do this
  properly
<braunr> hacky ?
<teythoon> but yes, updating the path should work I guess
<teythoon> or sad
<braunr> what i find hacky is to set translators in two passes
<braunr> otherwise we'd only keep the translator paths
<braunr> not all paths
<teythoon> true
<braunr> but then, it only concerns open nodes
<braunr> and again, there shouldn't be too many of them
<braunr> so actually it's ok
<teythoon> braunr: I understand the struct nodes are cached in libdiskfs,
  so wouldn't it be easier to attach the path to that struct instead of
  struct peropen so that all peropen objects reference the same node
  object?
<teythoon> so that the path can be updated if anyone dir_renames it
<teythoon> *all peropen objects derived from the same file name that is
<braunr> teythoon: i'm not sure
<braunr> nodes could be real nodes (i.e. inodes)
<braunr> there can be several paths for the same inode
<teythoon> braunr: I'm aware of that, but didn't we agree the other day
  that any path would do?
<braunr> i don't remember we did
<braunr> i don't know the details well, but i don't think setting a
  translator on a hard link should set the translator at the inode level
<braunr> on the other hand, if a new inode is created to replace the
  previous one (or stack over it), then storing the path there should be
  fine
<teythoon> braunr: I don't think I can update the paths if they're stored
  in the peropen struct
<teythoon> how would I get a reference to all those peropen objects?
<braunr> ?
<braunr> first, what's the context when you talkb about updating paths ?
<teythoon> well, youpi was concerned about renaming a mount point
<teythoon> and you implied that this could be managed
<braunr> can we actually do that btw ?
<teythoon> what?
<braunr> renaming a mount point
<teythoon> yep, just tried
<braunr> i mean, on a regular unix system like linux
<braunr> $ mv test blah
<braunr> mv: cannot move `test' to `blah': Device or resource busy
<braunr> (using sshfs so YMMV)
<pinotree> do you have anything (shells, open files, etc) inside it?
<braunr> no
<braunr> i'll try with an empty loop-mounted ext4
<teythoon> I was testing on the Hurd, worked fine there even with a shell
  inside
<braunr> same thing
<braunr> i consider it a bug
<braunr> we may want to check what posix says about it
<teythoon> o_O
<braunr> and decide not to support renaming
<teythoon> why?
<pinotree> start a discussion in ml, maybe roland can chime in
<braunr> it complicates things
<braunr> ah yes
<teythoon> sure, but I can move or rename a directory, why should it be
  different with a mount point?
<braunr> because it's two of them
<braunr> they're stacked
<braunr> if we do want to support that, we must be very careful about
  atomically updating all the stack
<teythoon> ok
<teythoon> braunr: I'm trying to detect dying translators to remove them
  from the list of translators
<teythoon> what port can I use for that purpose?
<teythoon> if I use the bootstrap port, can I then use the same method as
  init/init.c uses? just defining a do_mach_notify_dead_name function and
  the multiplexer will call this?
<braunr> teythoon: possibly
<teythoon> braunr: we'll see shortly...
<teythoon> I get KERN_INVALID_CAPABILITY indicating that my bootstrap port
  is invalid
<teythoon> when calling mach_port_request_notification to get the dead name
  notification I mean
<braunr> is the translator already started when you do that ?
<teythoon> yes, at least I think so, I'm hooking into
  diskfs_S_file_set_translator and that gets an active translators port
<teythoon> also the mach docs suggests that the notification port is
  invalid, not the name port referencing the translator
<braunr> i guess it shouldn't
<braunr> oh
<braunr> please show the code
<braunr> but beware, if the translator is started, assume it could die
  immediately
<teythoon> braunr: http://paste.debian.net/15371/ line 87
<braunr> teythoon: notify can't be bootstrap
<braunr> what do you have in mind when writing this ?
<braunr> i'm not sure i follow
<teythoon> I want to be notified if an active translator goes away to
  remove it from the list of translators
<braunr> ok but then
<braunr> create a send-once right
<braunr> and wait on it
<braunr> also, why do you want to be notified ?
<braunr> isn't this already done ?
<braunr> or can't do it lazily on access attempt ?
<braunr> +you
<teythoon> in the client?
<braunr> in the parent server
<braunr> what happens currently when a translator dies
<braunr> is the parent notified ?
<braunr> or does it give an invalid right ?
<teythoon> ah, i think so
<braunr> then you don't need to do it again
<teythoon> right, I overlooked that

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-12

<teythoon> recursively traversing all translators from / turns out to be
  more dangerous than I expected
<teythoon> ... if done by a translator bound somewhere below /...
<teythoon> my interpretation is that the mtab translator tries to talk to
  itself and deadlocks
<teythoon> (and as a side effect the whole system kinda just stops...)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-15

<youpi> teythoon: did you discuss with braunr about returning port vs path
  in fsys_get_children?
<teythoon> youpi: we did
<teythoon> as I wrote I looked at the getcwd source you pointed me at
<teythoon> and I started to code up something similar
<teythoon> but as far as I can see there's no way to tell from a port
  referencing a file the directory this file is located in
<youpi> ah, right, there was a [0] mail
<youpi> teythoon: because it doesn't have a "..", right
<teythoon> about Neals concerns, he's right about not covering passive
  translators very well
<teythoon> but the solution he proposed was similar to what I tried to do
  first
<youpi> I don't like half-covering passive translators at all, to be honest
  :)
<youpi> either covering them completely, or not at all, would be fine
<teythoon> and then braunr convinced me that the "recursive" approach is
  more elegant and hurdish, and I came to agree with him
<teythoon> youpi: one could scan the filesystem at translator startup and
  populate the list
<youpi> by "Neal's solution", you mean an mtab registry?
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> so, let's see what linux does when renaming parent directories
<teythoon> mount points you mean?
<youpi> teythoon: browsing the whole filesystem just to find passive
  translators is costly
<youpi> teythoon, braunr: and that won't prevent the user from unexpectedly
  starting other translators at will
<braunr> scary
<teythoon> youpi: but that requires the privilege to open the device
<youpi> the fact that a passive translator is set is nothing more than a
  user having the intent of starting a translator
<braunr> linux retains the original path in the mount table
<youpi> heh
<teythoon> youpi: any unprivileged user can trigger a translator startup
<youpi> sure, but root can do that too
<youpi> and expect the system to behave nicely
<teythoon> but if I'm root and want to fsck something, I won't start
  translators accessing the device just before that
<teythoon> but if there's a passive translator targetting the device,
  someone else might do that
<youpi> root does not always completely control what he's doing
<youpi> linux for instance does prevent from mounting a filesystem being
  checked
<teythoon> but still, including passive translators in the list would at
  least prevent anyone starting an translator by accident, isn't that worth
  doing then?
<youpi> if there's a way to prevent root too, that's better than having a
  half-support for something which we don't necessarily really want
<youpi> (i.e. an exclusive lock on the underlying device)
<teythoon> right, that would also do the trick
<teythoon> btw, some programs or scripts seem to hardcode /proc/mounts and
  procfs and I cannot bind a translator to /proc/mounts since it is
  read-only and the node does not exist
<kilobug> IMHO automatically starting translators is a generic feature, and
  passive translator is just a specific instance of it; but we could very
  well have, like an "autofs" that automatically start translators in tar
  archives and iso images, allowing to cd into any tar/iso on the system;
  implementing such things is part of the Hurd flexibility, the "core
  system" shouldn't be too aware on how translators are started
<youpi> so in the end, storing where the active translator was started
  first seems okayish according to what linux has been exposing for decades
<youpi> kilobug: indeed
<teythoon> it could serve a mounts with a passive translator by default, or
  a link to /run/mtab, or an simple file so we could bind a translator to
  that node
<youpi> I'd tend to think that /proc/mounts should be a passive translator
  and /run/mtab / /etc/mtab a symlink to it
<youpi> not being to choose the translator is a concern however
<teythoon> ok, I'll look into that
<youpi> it could be an empty file, and people be able to set a translator
  on it
<teythoon> if it had a passive translator, people still could bind their
  own translator to it later on, right?
<teythoon> afaics the issue currently is mostly, that there is no mounts
  node and it is not possible to create one
<youpi> right
<teythoon> cool
<youpi> so with the actual path, you can even check for caller's permission
  to read the path
<youpi> i.e. not provide any more information than the user would be able
  to get from browsing by hand
<teythoon> sure, that concern of Neil's is easy to address
<youpi> I'm not so much concerned by stale paths being shown in mtab
<youpi> the worst that can happen is a user not being able to umount the
  path
<youpi> but he can settrans -g it
<youpi> (which he can't on linux ;) )
<teythoon> yes, and the device information is still valid
<youpi> yes
<braunr> despite the parent dir being renamed, linux is still able to
  umount the new path
<teythoon> and so is our current umount
<braunr> good
<teythoon> (if one uses the mount point as argument)
<braunr> what's the current plan concerning /proc/mounts ?
<teythoon> serving a node with a passive translator record
<braunr> ?
<teythoon> so that /hurd/mtab / is started on access
<braunr> i mean, still planning on using the recursive approach instead of
  a registry ?
<teythoon> ah
<teythoon> I do not feel confident enough to decide this, but I agree with
  you, it feels elegant
<teythoon> and it works :)
<teythoon> modulo the translator deadlocking if it talks to itself, any
  thoughts on that?
<youpi> it is a non-threaded translator I guess?
<teythoon> currently yes
<youpi> making it threaded should fix the issue
<teythoon> I tried to make the mtab translator multithreaded but that
  didn't help
<youpi> that's odd
<teythoon> maybe I did it wrong
<braunr> i don't find it surprising
<braunr> well, not that surprising :p
<braunr> on what lock does it block ?
<teythoon> as far as i can see the only difference of hello and hellot-mt
  is that it uses a different dispatcher and has lot's of locking, right?
<teythoon> braunr: I'm not sure, partly because that wrecked havoc on the
  whole system
<teythoon> it just freezes
<teythoon> but it wasn't permanent. once i let it running and it recovered
<braunr> consider using a subhurd
<teythoon> ah right, I ment to set up one anyway, but my first attempts
  were not successful, not sure why
<teythoon> anyway, is there a way to prevent this in the first place?
<teythoon> if one could compare ports that'd be helpful
<youpi> Mmm, did you try to simply compare the number?
<teythoon> with the bootstrap port I presume?
<youpi> Mmm, no, the send port and the receive port would be different
<youpi> no, with the receive port
<teythoon> ah
<braunr> comparing the numbers should work
<braunr> youpi: no they should be the same
<youpi> braunr: ah, then it should work yes
<braunr> that's why there are user ref counts
<youpi> ok
<braunr> only send-once rights have their own names
<teythoon> btw, I'll push my work to darnassus from now on,
  e.g. https://darnassus.sceen.net/cgit/?p=teythoon/hurd.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/feature-mtab-translator-v3-wip

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-11-20

<braunr> teythoon: ah thanks for making mtab multithreaded :)
<braunr> i forgot about that

libnetfs passive translators

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-16

<teythoon> which port is the receive port of a translator? I mean, how is
  it called in the source, there is no port in sight named receive anywhere
  I looked.
<braunr> teythoon: what is the "receive port of a translator" ?
<teythoon> braunr: we talked yesterday about preventing the mtab deadlock
  by comparing ports
<teythoon> I asked which one to use for the comparison, youpi said the
  receive port
<braunr> i'm not sure what he meant
<braunr> it could be the receive port used for the RPC
<braunr> but i don't think it's exported past mig stub code
<teythoon> weird, I just reread it. I asked if i should use the bootstrap
  port, and he said receive port, but it might have been addressed to you?
<teythoon> you were talking about send and receive ports being singletons
  or not
<teythoon> umm
<braunr> no i answered him
<braunr> he was wondering if the receive port could actually be used for
  comparison
<braunr> i said it can
<braunr> but still, i'm not sure what port
<braunr> if it's urgent, send him a mail
<teythoon> no, my pipeline is full of stuff I can do instead ;)
<braunr> :)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-17

<teythoon> braunr: btw, comparing ports solved the deadlock in the mtab
  translator rather easily
<braunr> :)
<braunr> which port then ?
<teythoon> currently I'm stuck though, I'm not sure how to address Neals
  concern wrt to access permission checks
<teythoon> I believe it's called control port
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> the one one gets from doing the handshake with the parent
<braunr> i thought it was the bootstrap port
<braunr> but i don't know the details so i may be wrong
<braunr> anyway
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> what is the permission problem again ?
<teythoon> 871u73j4zp.wl%neal@walfield.org
<braunr> well, you could perform a lookup on the stored path
<braunr> as if opening the node
<teythoon> if I look at any server implementation of a procedure from
  fs.defs (say libtrivfs/file-chmod.c [bad example though, that looks wrong
  to me]), there is permission checking being done
<teythoon> any server implementation of a procedure from fsys.defs lacks
  permission checks, so I guess it's being done somewhere else
<braunr> i must say i'm a bit lost in this discussion
<braunr> i don't know :/
<braunr> can *you* sum up the permission problem please ?
<braunr> i mean here, now, in just a few words ?
<teythoon> ok, so I'm extending the fsys api with the get_children
  procedure
<teythoon> that one should not return any children x/y if the user doing
  the request has no read permissions on x
<braunr> really ?
<braunr> why so ?
<teythoon> the same way ls x would not reveal the existence of y
<braunr> i could also say unlike cat /proc/mounts
<braunr> i can see why we would want that
<braunr> i also can see why we could let this behaviour in place
<braunr> let's admit we do want it
<teythoon> true, but I thought this could easily be addressed
<braunr> what you could do is
<teythoon> now I'm not sure b/c I cannot even find the permission checking
  code for any fsys_* function
<braunr> for each element in the list of child translators
<braunr> perform a lookup on the stored path on behalf of the user
<braunr> and add to the returned list if permission checks pass
<braunr> teythoon: note that i said lookup on the path, which is an fs
  interface
<braunr> i assume there is no permission checking for the fsys interface
  because it's done at the file (fs) level
<teythoon> i think so too, yes
<teythoon> sure, if I only knew who made the request in the first place
<teythoon> the file-* options have a convenient credential handle passed in
  as first parameter
<teythoon> s/options/procedures/
<teythoon> surely the fsys-* procedures also have a means of retrieving
  that information, I just don't know how
<braunr> mig magic
<braunr> teythoon: see file_t in hurd_types.defs
<braunr> there is the macro FILE_INTRAN which is defined in subdirectories
  (or not)
<teythoon> ah, retrieving the control port requires permissions, and the
  fsys-* operations then operate on the control port?
<braunr> see libdiskfs/fsmutations.h for example
<braunr> uh yes but that's for < braunr> i assume there is no permission
  checking for the fsys interface because it's done at the file (fs) level
<braunr> i'm answering < teythoon> sure, if I only knew who made the
  request in the first place
<braunr> teythoon: do we understand each other or is there still something
  fuzzy ?
<teythoon> braunr: thanks for the pointers, I'll read up on that a bit
  later
<braunr> teythoon: ok

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-18

<teythoon> braunr: back to the permission checking problem for the
  fsys_get_children interface
<teythoon> I can see how this could be easily implemented in the mtab
  translator, it asks the translator for the list of children and then
  checks if the user has permission to read the parent dir
<teythoon> but that is pointless, it has to be implemented in the
  fsys_get_children server function
<braunr> yes
<braunr> why is it pointless ?
<teythoon> because one could circumvent the restriction by doing the
  fsys_get_children call w/o the mtab translator
<braunr> uh no
<braunr> you got it wrong
<braunr> what i suggested is that fsys_get_children does it before
  returning a list
<braunr> the problem is that the mtab translator has a different identity
  from the users accessing it
<teythoon> yes, but I cannot see how to do this, b/c at this point I do not
  have the user credentials
<braunr> get them
<teythoon> how?
<braunr> 16:14 < braunr> mig magic
<braunr> 16:15 < braunr> teythoon: see file_t in hurd_types.defs
<braunr> 16:16 < braunr> there is the macro FILE_INTRAN which is defined in
  subdirectories (or not)
<braunr> 16:16 < braunr> see libdiskfs/fsmutations.h for example
<teythoon> i saw that
<braunr> is there a problem i don't see then ?
<braunr> i suppose you should define FSYS_INTRAN rather
<braunr> but the idea is the same
<teythoon> won't that change all the function signatures of the fsys-*
  family?
<braunr> that's probably the only reason not to implement this feature
  right now
<teythoon> then again, that change is probably easy and mechanic in nature,
  might be an excuse to play around with coccinelle
<braunr> why not
<braunr> if you have the time
<teythoon> right, if this can be done, the mtab translator (if run as root)
  could get credentials matching the users credentials to make that
  request, right?
<braunr> i suppose
<braunr> i'm not sure it's easy to make servers do requests on behalf of
  users on the hurd
<braunr> which makes me wonder if the mtab functionality shouldn't be
  implemented in glibc eheheh ....
<braunr> but probably not
<teythoon> well, I'll try out the mig magic thing and see how painful it is
  to fix everything ;)
<braunr> good luck
<braunr> honestly, i'm starting to think it's deviating too much from your
  initial goal
<braunr> i'd be fine with a linux-like /proc/mounts
<braunr> with a TODO concerning permissions
<teythoon> ok, fine with me :)
<braunr> confirm it with the other mentors please
<braunr> we have to agree quickly on this
<teythoon> y?

<teythoon> braunr: I actually believe that the permission issue can be
  addressed cleanly and unobstrusively
<teythoon> braunr: would you still be opposed to the get_children approach
  if that is solved?
<teythoon> the filesystem is a tree and the translators "creating" that
  tree are a more coarse version of that tree
<teythoon> having a method to traverse that tree seems natural to me
<braunr> teythoon: it is natural
<braunr> i'm just worried it's a bit too complicated, unnecessary, and
  out-of-scope for the problem at hand
<braunr> (which is /proc/mounts, not to forget it)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-19

<teythoon> braunr: I think you could be a bit more optimistic and
  supportive of the decentralized approach
<teythoon> I know the dark side has cookies and strong language and it's
  mighty tempting
<teythoon> but both are bad for you :p

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-22

<youpi> teythoon: AIUI, you should be able to run the mtab translator as
  no-user (i.e. no uid)
<teythoon> youpi: yes, that works fine

<youpi> teythoon: so there is actually no need to define FSYS_INTRAN, doing
  it by hand as you did is fine, right?
<youpi> (/me backlogs mails...)
<teythoon> youpi: yes, the main challenge was to figure out what mig does
  and how the cpp is involved
<youpi> heh :)
<teythoon> my patch does exactly the same, but only for this one server
  function
<teythoon> youpi: I'm confused by your mail, why are read permissions on
  all path components necessary?
<braunr> teythoon: only execution normally
<youpi> teythoon: to avoid letting a user discover a translator running on
  a hidden directory
<teythoon> braunr: exactly, and that is tested
<youpi> e.g. ~/home/foo is o+x, but o-r
<youpi> and I have a translator running on ~/home/foo/aZeRtYuyU
<youpi> I don't want that to show up on /proc/mounts
<braunr> youpi: i don't understand either: why isn't execution permission
  enough ?
<teythoon> youpi: but that requires testing for read on the *last*
  component of the *dirname* of your translator, and that is tested
<youpi> let me take another example :)
<youpi> e.g. ~/home/foo/aZeRtYuyU is o+x, but o-r
<youpi> and I have a translator running on ~/home/foo/aZeRtYuyU/foo
<youpi> ergl sorry, I meant this actually:
<teythoon> yes, that won't show up then in the mtab for users that are not
  you and not root
<youpi> e.g. ~/home/foo is o+x, but o-r
<youpi> and I have a translator running on ~/home/foo/aZeRtYuyU/foo
<teythoon> ah
<teythoon> hmm, good point
<braunr> ?
* braunr still confused
<teythoon> well, qwfpgjlu is the secret
<teythoon> and that is revealed by the fsys_get_children procedure
<braunr> then i didn't understand the description of the call right
<braunr> > +  /* check_access performs the same permission check as is
  normally                                                                                                                    
<braunr> > +     done, i.e. it checks that all but the last path components
  are                                                                                                                    
<braunr> > +     executable by the requesting user and that the last
  component is                                                                                                                  
<braunr> > +     readable.       */                                                                                                                                                                
<teythoon> braunr: youpi argues that this is not enough in this case
<braunr> from that, it looks ok to me
<youpi> the function and the documentation agree, yes
<youpi> but that's not what we want
<braunr> and that's where i fail to understand
<youpi> again, see my example
<braunr> i am
<braunr> 10:43 < youpi> e.g. ~/home/foo is o+x, but o-r
<braunr> ok
<youpi> so the user is not supposed to find out the secret
<braunr> then your example isn't enough to describe what's wron
<braunr> g
<youpi> checking read permission only on ~/home/foo/aZeRtYuyU will not
  garantee that
<braunr> ah
<braunr> i thought foo was the last component
<youpi> no, that's why I changed my example
<braunr> hum
<braunr> 10:43 < youpi> e.g. ~/home/foo is o+x, but o-r
<braunr> 10:43 < youpi> and I have a translator running on
  ~/home/foo/aZeRtYuyU/foo
<braunr> i meant, the last foo
<teythoon> still, this is easily fixed
<youpi> sure
<youpi> just has to be :)
<teythoon> youpi, braunr: so do you think that this approach will work?
<youpi> I believe so
<braunr> i still don't see the problem, so don't ask me :)
<braunr> i've been sick all week end and hardly slept, which might explain
<braunr> in the example, "all but the last path components" is
  "~/home/foo/aZeRtYuyU"
<braunr> right ?
<youpi> braunr: well, I haven't looked at the details
<youpi> but be it the last, or but-last  doesn't change the issue
<youpi> if my ~/hidden is o-r,o+x
<youpi> and I have a translator on ~/hidden/a/b/c/d/e
<youpi> checking only +x on hidden is not ok
<braunr> but won't the call also check a b c d ?
<youpi> yes, but that's not what matters
<youpi> what matters is that hidden is o-r
<braunr> hm
<youpi> so the mtab translator is not supposed to reveal that there is an
  "a" in there
<braunr> ok i'm starting to understand
<braunr> so r must be checked on all components too
<youpi> yes
<braunr> right
<youpi> to simulate the user doing ls, cd, ls, cd, etc.
<braunr> well, not cd
<braunr> ah
<youpi> for being able to do ls, you have to be able to do cd
<braunr> as an ordered list of commands
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> agreed. can you think of any more issues?
<braunr> so both x and r must be checked
<youpi> so in the end this RPC is really a shortcut for a find + fsysopts
  script
<youpi> teythoon: I don't see any
<braunr> teythoon: i couldn't take a clear look at the patch but
<braunr> do you perform a lookup on all nodes ?
<teythoon> yes, all nodes on the path from the root to the one specified by
  the mount point entry in the active translator list
<braunr> let me rephrase
<braunr> do you at some point do a lookup, similar to a find, on all nodes
  of a translator ?
<teythoon> no
<braunr> good
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> iirc, neal raised that concern once
<teythoon> and I'll also fix settrans --recursive not to iterate over *all*
  nodes either
<braunr> great
<braunr> :)
<teythoon> fsys_set_options with do_children=1 currently does that (I've
  only looked at the diskfs version)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-27

<teythoon> youpi: ah, I just found msg_get_init_port, that should make the
  translator detection feasible

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-31

<teythoon> braunr: can I discover the sender of an rpc message?
<braunr> teythoon: no
<braunr> teythoon: what do you mean by "sender" ?
<teythoon> braunr: well, I'm trying to do permission checks in the
  S_proc_mark_essential server function
<braunr> ok so, the sending user
<braunr> that should be doable
<teythoon> I've got a struct proc *p courtesy of a mig intran mutation and
  a port lookup
<teythoon> but that is not necessarily the sender, right?
<braunr> proc is really the server i know the least :/
<braunr> there is permission checking for signals
<braunr> it does work
<braunr> you should look there
<teythoon> yes, there are permission checks there
<teythoon> but the only argument the rpc has is a mach_port_t refering to
  an object in the proc server
<braunr> yes
<teythoon> anyone can obtain such a handle for any process, no?
<braunr> can you tell where it is exactly please ?
<braunr> i don't think so, no
<teythoon> what?
<braunr> 14:42 < teythoon> but the only argument the rpc has is a
  mach_port_t refering to an object in the proc server
<teythoon> ah
<braunr> the code you're referring to
<braunr> a common way to give privileges to public objects is to provide
  different types of rights
<braunr> a public (usually read-only) right
<braunr> and a privileged one, like host_priv which you may have seen
<braunr> acting on (modifying) a remote object normally requires the latter
<teythoon> http://paste.debian.net/20795/
<braunr> i thought you were referring to existing code
<teythoon> well, there is existing code doing permission checks the same
  way I'm doing it there
<braunr> where is it please ?
<braunr> mgt.c ?
<teythoon> proc/mgt.c (S_proc_setowner) for example
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> that's different
<teythoon> but anyone can obtain such a reference by doing proc_pid2proc
<braunr> the sender is explicitely giving the new uid
<braunr> yes but not anyone is already an owner of the target process
<braunr> (although it may look like anyone has the right to clear the owner
  oO)
<teythoon> see, that's what made me worry, it is not checked who's the
  sender of the message
<teythoon> unless i'm missing something here
<teythoon> ah
<teythoon> I am
<teythoon> pid2proc returns EPERM if one is not the owner of the process in
  question
<teythoon> all is well
<braunr> ok
<braunr> it still requires the caller process though
<teythoon> what?
<braunr> see check_owner
<braunr> the only occurrence i find in the hurd is in libps/procstat.c
<braunr> MGET(PSTAT_PROCESS, PSTAT_PID, proc_pid2proc (server, ps->pid,
  &ps->process));
<braunr> server being the proc server AIUI
<teythoon> yes, most likely
<braunr> but pid2proc describes this first argument to be the caller
  process
<teythoon> ah but it is
<braunr> ?
<teythoon> mig magic :p
<teythoon> MIGSFLAGS="-DPROCESS_INTRAN=pstruct_t reqport_find (process_t)"
  \
<teythoon> MIGSFLAGS="-DPROCESS_INTRAN=pstruct_t reqport_find (process_t)"
  \
<braunr> ah nice
<braunr> hum no
<braunr> this just looks up the proc object from a port name, which is
  obvious
<braunr> what i mean is
<braunr> 14:53 < braunr> MGET(PSTAT_PROCESS, PSTAT_PID, proc_pid2proc
  (server, ps->pid, &ps->process));
<braunr> this is done in libps
<braunr> which can be used by any process
<braunr> server is the proc server for this process (it defines the process
  namespace)
<teythoon> yes, but isn't the port to the proc server different for each
  process?
<braunr> no, the port is the same (the name changes only)
<braunr> ports are global non-first class objects
<teythoon> and the proc server can thus tell with the lookup which process
  it is talking to?
<braunr> that's the thing
<braunr> from pid2proc :
<braunr> S_proc_pid2proc (struct proc *callerp
<braunr> [...]
<braunr> if (! check_owner (callerp, p))
<braunr> check_owner (struct proc *proc1, struct proc *proc2)
<braunr> "Returns true if PROC1 has `owner' privileges over PROC2 (and can
  thus get its task port &c)."
<braunr> callerp looks like it should be the caller process
<braunr> but in libps, it seems to be the proc server
<braunr> this looks strange to me
<teythoon> yep, to me too, hence my confusion
<braunr> could be a bug that allows anyone to perform pid2proc
<teythoon> braunr: well, proc_pid2proc (getproc (), 1, ...) fails with
  EPERM as expected for me
<braunr> ofc it does with getproc()
<braunr> but what forces a process to pass itself as the first argument ?
<teythoon> braunr: nothing, but what else would it pass there?
<braunr> 14:53 < braunr> MGET(PSTAT_PROCESS, PSTAT_PID, proc_pid2proc
  (server, ps->pid, &ps->process));
<braunr> everyone knows the proc server
<braunr> ok now, that's weird
<braunr> teythoon: does getproc() return the proc server ?
<teythoon> I think so, yes
<teythoon> damn those distributed systems, all of their sources are so
  distributed too
<braunr> i suspect there is another layer of dark glue in the way
<teythoon> I cannot even find getproc :/
<braunr> hurdports.c:GETSET (process_t, proc, PROC)
<braunr> that's the dark glue :p
<teythoon> ah, so it must be true that the ports to the proc server are
  indeed process specific, right?
<braunr> ?
<teythoon> well, it is not one port to the proc server that everyone knows
<braunr> it is
<braunr> what makes you think it's not ?
<teythoon> proc_pid2proc (getproc (), 1, ...) fails with EPERM for anyone
  not being root, but succeeds for root
<braunr> hm right
<teythoon> if getproc () were to return the same port, the proc server
  couldn't distinguish these
<braunr> indeed
<braunr> in which case getproc() actually returns the caller's process
  object at its proc server
<teythoon> yes, that is better worded
<braunr> teythoon: i'm not sure it's true actually :/
<teythoon> braunr: well, exploit or it didn't happen
<braunr> teythoon: getproc() apparently returns a bootstrap port
<braunr> we must find the code that sets this port
<braunr> i have a hard time doing that :/
<pinotree> isn't part of the stuff which is passed to a new process by
  exec?
<teythoon> braunr: I know that feeling
<braunr> pinotree: probably
<braunr> still hard to find ..
<pinotree> search in glibc
<teythoon> braunr: exec/exec.c:1654 asks the proc server for the proc
  object to use for the new process
<teythoon> so how much of hurd do I have to rebuild once i changed struct
  procinfo in hurd_types.h?
<teythoon> oh noez, glibc uses it too :/

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-08-01

<teythoon> I need some pointers on building the libc, specifically how to
  point libcs build system to my modified hurd headers
<teythoon> nlightnfotis: hi
<teythoon> nlightnfotis: you rebuild the libc right? do you have any hurd
  specific pointers for doing so?
<nlightnfotis> teythoon, I have not yet rebuild the libc (I was planning
  to, but I followed other courses of action) Thomas had pointed me to some
  resources on the Hurd website. I can look them up for you
<nlightnfotis> teythoon, here are the instructions
  https://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/open_issues/glibc/debian/
<nlightnfotis> and the eglibc snapshot is here
  http://snapshot.debian.org/package/eglibc/
<teythoon> nlightnfotis: yeah, I found those. the thing is I changed a
  struct in the hurd_types.h header, so now I want to rebuild the libc with
  that header
<teythoon> and I cannot figure out how to point libcs build system to my
  hurd headers
<teythoon> :/
<nlightnfotis> can you patch eglibc and build that one instead?
<pochu> teythoon: put your header in the appropriate /usr/include/ dir
<teythoon> pochu: is there no other way?
<pinotree> iirc nope
<pochu> teythoon: you may be able to pass some flag to configure, but I
  don't know if that will work in this specific case
<teythoon> ouch >,< that explains why I haven't found one
<pochu> check ./configure --help, it's usually FOO_CFLAGS (so something
  like HURD_CFLAGS maybe)
<pochu> but then you may need _LIBS as well depending on how you changed
  the header... so in the end it's just easier to put the header in
  /usr/include/
<braunr> teythoon: did you find the info for your libc build ?
<teythoon> braunr: well, i firmlinked my hurd_types.h into /usr/include/...
<braunr> ew
<braunr> i recommend building debian packages
<teythoon> but the build was not successful, looks unrelated to my changes
  though
<teythoon> I tried that last week and the process took more than eight
  hours and did not finish
<braunr> use darnassus
<braunr> it takes about 6 hours on it
<teythoon> I shall try again and skip the unused variants
<braunr> i also suggest you use ./debian/rules build
<braunr> and then interrupt the build process one you see it's building
  object files
<braunr> go to the hurd-libc-i386 build dir, and use make lib others
<braunr> make lib builds libc, others is for companion libraries lik
  libpthread
<braunr> actually building libc takes less than an hour
<braunr> so once you validate your build this way, you know building the
  whole debian package will succedd
<braunr> succeed*
<teythoon> so how do I get the build system to pick up my hurd_types.h?
<braunr> sorry if this is obvious to you, you might be more familiar with
  debian than i am :)
<braunr> patch the hurd package
<braunr> append your own version string like +teythoon.hurd.1
<braunr> install it
<braunr> then build libc
<braunr> i'll reboot darnassus so you have a fresh and fast build env
<braunr> almost a month of uptime without any major issue :)
<teythoon> err, but I cannot install my hurd package on darnassus, can I? I
  don't think that'd be wise even if it were possible
<braunr> teythoon: rebooted, enjoy
<braunr> why not ?
<braunr> i often do it for my own developments
<braunr> teythoon: screen is normally available
<braunr> teythoon: be aware that fakeroot-tcp is known to hang when pfinet
  is out of ports (that's a bug)
<braunr> it takes more time to reach that bug since a patch that got in
  less than a year ago, but it still happens
<braunr> the hurd packages are quick to build, and they should only provide
  the new header, right ?
<braunr> you can include the functionality too in the packages if you're
  confident enough
<teythoon> but my latest work on the killing of essential processes issues
  involves patching hurd_types.h and that in a way that breaks the ABI,
  hence the need to rebuild the libc (afaiui)
<braunr> teythoon: yes, this isn't uncommon
<teythoon> braunr: this is much more intrusive than anything I've done so
  far, so I'm not so confident in my changes for now
<braunr> teythoon: show me the patch please
<teythoon> braunr: it's not split up yet, so kind of messy:
  http://paste.debian.net/21403/
<braunr> teythoon: did you make sure to add RPCs at the end of defs files ?
<teythoon> yes, I got burned by this one on my very first attempt, you
  pointed out that mistake
<braunr> :)
<braunr> ok
<braunr> you're changing struct procinfo
<braunr> this really breaks the abi
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> i.e. you can't do that
<teythoon> I cannot put it at the end b/c of that variable length array
<braunr> you probably should add another interface
<teythoon> that'd be easier, sure, but this will slow down procfs even
  more, no?
<braunr> that's secondary
<braunr> it won't be easier, breaking the abi may break updates
<braunr> in which case it's impossible
<braunr> another way would be to ues a new procinfo struct
<braunr> like struct procinfo2
<braunr> but then you need a transition step so that all users switch to
  that new version
<braunr> which is the best way to deal with these issues imo, but this time
  not the easiest :)
<teythoon> ok, so I'll introduce another rpc and make sure that one is
  extensible
<braunr> hum no
<braunr> this usually involves using a version anyway
<teythoon> no? but it is likely that we need to save more addresses of this
  kind in the future
<braunr> in which case it will be hanlded as an independant problem with a
  true solution such as the one i mentioned
<teythoon> it could return an array of vm_address_ts with a length
  indicating how many items were returned
<braunr> it's ugly
<braunr> the code is already confusing enough
<braunr> keep names around for clarity
<teythoon> ok, point taken
<braunr> really, don't mind additional RPCs when first adding new features
<braunr> once the interface is stable, a new and improved version becomes a
  new development of its own
<braunr> you're invited to work on that after gsoc :)
<braunr> but during gsoc, it just seems like an unnecessary burden
<teythoon> ok cool, I really like that way of extending Hurd, it's really
  easy
<teythoon> and feels so natural
<braunr> i share your concern about performances, and had a similar problem
  when adding page cache information to gnumach
<braunr> in the end, i'll have to rework that again
<braunr> because i tried to extend it beyond what i needed
<teythoon> true, I see how that could happen easily
<braunr> the real problem is mig
<braunr> mig limits subsystems to 100 calls
<braunr> it's clearly not enough
<braunr> in x15, i intend to use 16 bits for subsystems and 16 bits for
  RPCs, which should be plenty
<teythoon> that limit seems rather artificial, it's not a power of two
<braunr> yes it is
<teythoon> so let's fix it
<braunr> mach had many artificial static limits
<braunr> eh :D
<braunr> not easy
<braunr> replies are encoded by taking the request ID and adding 100
<teythoon> uh
<braunr> "uh" indeed
<teythoon> so we need an intermediate version of mig that accepts both
  id+100 and dunno id+2^x as replies for id
<teythoon> or -id - 1
<braunr> that would completely break the abi
<teythoon> braunr: how so? the change would be in the *_server functions
  and be compatible with the old id scheme
<braunr> how do you make sure id+2^x doesn't conflict with another id ?
<teythoon> oh, the id is added to the subsystem id?
<teythoon> to obtain a global message id?
<braunr> yes
<teythoon> ah, I see
<teythoon> ah, but the hurd subsystems are 1000 ids apart
<teythoon> so id+100 or id +500 would work
<braunr> we need to make sure it's true
<braunr> always true
<teythoon> so how many bits do we have for the message id in mach?
<teythoon> (mig?)
<braunr> mach shouldn't care, it's entirely a mig thing
<braunr> well yes and no
<braunr> mach defines the message header, which includes the message id
<braunr> see mach/message.h
<braunr>     mach_msg_id_t       msgh_id;
<braunr> typedef integer_t mach_msg_id_t;
<teythoon> well, if that is like a 32 bit integer, then allow -id-1 as
  reply and forbid ids > 2^x / 2
<braunr> yes
<braunr> seems reasonable
<teythoon> that'd give us an smooth upgrade path, no?
<braunr> i think so

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-08-28

<youpi> teythoon: Mmm, your patch series does not make e.g. ext2fs provide
  a diskfs_get_source, does it?

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-08-29

<teythoon> youpi: that is correct
<youpi> teythoon: Mmm, I must be missing something then: as such the patch
  series introduces an RPC, but only EOPNOTSUPP is ever returned in all
  cases for now?
<youpi> ah
<youpi>  /* Guess based on the last argument. */
<youpi> since ext2fs & such report their options with store last, it seems
  ok indeed
<youpi> it still seems a bit lame not to return that information in
  get_source
<teythoon> yes
<teythoon> well, if it had been just for me, I would not have created that
  rpc, but only guessing was frowned uppon iirc
<teythoon> then again, maybe this should be used and then the mtab
  translator could skip any translators that do not provide this
  information to filter out non-"filesystem" translators
<youpi> guessing is usually trap-prone, yes
<youpi> if it is to be used by mtab, then maybe it should be documented as
  being used by mtab
<youpi> otherwise symlink would set a source, for instance
<youpi> while we don't really want it here
<teythoon> why would the symlink translator answer to such requests? it is
  not a filesystem-like translator
<youpi> no, but the name & documentation of the RPC doesn't tell it's only
  for filesystem-like translators
<youpi> well, the documentation does say "filesystem"
<youpi> but it does not clearly specify that one shouldn't implement
  get_source if one is not a filesystme
<youpi> "If the concept of a source is applicable" works for a symlink
<youpi> that could be the same for eth-filter, etc.
<teythoon> right
<youpi> Mmm, that said it's fsys.defs
<youpi> not io.defs
<youpi> teythoon: it is the fact that we get EOPNOTSUPP (i.e. fsys
  interface supported, just not that call), and not MIG_BAD_ID (i.e. fsys
  interface not supported), that filters out symlink & such, right?
<teythoon> that's what I was thinking, but that's based on my
  interpretation of EOPNOPSUPP of course ;)
<youpi> teythoon: I believe that for whatever is a bit questionable, even
  if you put yourself on the side that people will probably agree on, the
  discussion will still take place so we make sure it's the right side :)
<youpi> (re: start/end_code)
<teythoon> I'm not sure I follow
<teythoon> youpi: /proc/pid/stat seems to be used a lot:
  http://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=%22%2Fproc%2F.*%2Fstat%22
<teythoon> that does not mean that start/endcode is used, but still it
  seems like a good thing to mimic Linux closely
<youpi> stat is used a lot for cpu usage for instance, yes
<youpi> start/endcode, I really wonder who is using it
<youpi> using it for kernel thread detection looks weird to me :)
<youpi> (questionable): I mean that even if you take the time to put
  yourself on the side that people will probably agree on, the discussion
  will happen
<youpi> it has to happen so people know they agree on it
<youpi> I've seen that a lot in various projects (not only CS-related)
<teythoon> ok, I think I got it
<teythoon> it's to document the reasons for (not) doing something?
<youpi> something like this, yes
<youpi> even if you look right, people will try to poke holes
<youpi> just to make sure :)
<teythoon> btw, I think it's rather unusual that our storeio experiments
  would produce such different results
<teythoon> you're right about the block device, no idea why I got a
  character file there
<teythoon> I used settrans -ca /tmp/hello.unzipped /hurd/storeio -T
  gunzip:file /tmp/hello
<teythoon> also I tried stacking the translator on /tmp/hello directly,
  from what I've gathered that should be possible, but I failed
<teythoon> ftr I use the exec server with all my patches, so the unzipping
  code has been removed from it
<youpi> ah, I probably still have it
<youpi> it shouldn't matter here, though
<teythoon> I agree
<youpi> how would you stack it?
<youpi> I've never had a look at that
<youpi> I'm not sure attaching the translator to the node is done before or
  after the translator has a change to open its target
<teythoon> right
<teythoon> but it could be done, if storeio used the reference to the
  underlying node, no?
<youpi> yes
<youpi> btw, you had said at some point that you had issues with running
  remap. Was the issue what you fixed with your patches?
* youpi realizes that he should have shown the remap.c source code during
    his presentation
<teythoon> well, I tried to remap /servers/exec (iirc) and that failed
<teythoon> then again, I recently played with remap and all seemed fine
<teythoon> but I'm sure it has nothing to do with my patches
<youpi> ok
<teythoon> those I came up with investigating fakeroot-hurd
<teythoon> and I saw that this also aplies to remap.sh
<teythoon> *while
<youpi> yep, they're basically the same

remap root translator, fakeroot.

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-06

<braunr> teythoon: do you personally prefer /proc being able to implement
  /proc/self on its own, or using the magic server to tell clients to
  resolve those specific cases themselves ?
<pinotree> imho solving the "who's the sender of an rpc" could solve both
  the SCM_CREDS implementation and the self case in procfs

SENDMSG SCM CREDS, discussion, /proc/self.

<braunr> pinotree: yes
<braunr> but that would require servers impersonating users to some extent
<braunr> and this seems against the hurd philosophy
<pinotree> and there was also the fact that you could create a
  fake/different port when sending an rpc
<braunr> to fake what ?
<pinotree> the sender identiy
<pinotree> *identity
<braunr> what ?
<braunr> you mean intermediate servers can do that
<teythoon> braunr: I don't know if I understand all the implications of
  your question, but the magic server is the only hurd server that actually
  implements fsys_forward (afaics), so why not use that?
<braunr> teythoon: my question was rather about the principle
<braunr> do people find it acceptable to entrust a server with their
  authority or not
<braunr> on the hurd, it's clearly wrong
<braunr> but then it means you need special cases everywhere, usually
  handled by glibc
<braunr> and that's something i find wrong too
<braunr> it restricts extensibility
<braunr> the user can always change its libc at runtime, but in practice,
  it's harder to perform than simply doing it in the server
<teythoon> braunr: then I think I didn't get the question at all
<braunr> teythoon: it's kind of the same issue that you had with the mtab
  translator
<braunr> about showing or not some entries the user normally doesn't have
  access to
<braunr> this problem occurs when there is more than one server on the
  execution path and the servers beyond the first one need credentials to
  reply something meaningful
<braunr> the /proc/self case is a perfect one
<braunr> (conceptually, it's client -> procfs -> symlink)
<braunr> 1/ procfs tells the client it needs to handle this specially,
  which is what the hurd does with magic
<braunr> 2/ procfs assumes the identity of the client and the symlink
  translator can act as expected because of that
<braunr> teythoon: what way do you find better ?
<teythoon> braunr: by "procfs assumes the identity" you mean procfs
  impersonating the user?
<braunr> yes
<teythoon> braunr: tbh I still do not see how this can be implemented at
  all b/c the /proc/self symlink is not about identity (which can be
  derived from the peropen struct initially created by fsys_getroot) but
  the pid of the callee (which afaics is nowhere to be found)
<teythoon> s/callee/caller/
<teythoon> the one doing the rpc
<braunr> impersonating the user isn't only about identity
<braunr> actually, it's impersonating the client
<teythoon> yes, client is the term >,<
<braunr> so basically, asking proc about the properties of the process
  being impersonated
<teythoon> proc o_O
<braunr> it's not hard, it's just a big turn in the way the system would
  function
<braunr> teythoon: ?
<teythoon> you lost me somewhere
<braunr> the client is the process
<braunr> not the user
<teythoon> in order to implement /proc/self properly, one has to get the
  process id of the process doing the /proc/self lookup, right?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> actually, we would even slice it more and have the client be a
  thread
<teythoon> so how do you get to that piece of information at all?
<braunr> the server inherits a special port designating the client, which
  allows it to query proc about its properties, and assume it's identity in
  servers such as auth
<braunr> its*
<teythoon> ah, but that kind of functionality isn't there at the moment, is
  it?
<braunr> it's not, by design
<teythoon> right, hence my confusion
<braunr> instead, servers use the magic translator to send a "retry with
  special handling" message to clients
<teythoon> right, so the procfs could bounce that back to the libc handler
  that of course knows its pid
<braunr> yes
<teythoon> right, so now at last I got the whole question :)
<braunr> :)
<teythoon> ugh, I just found the FS_RETRY_MAGICAL handler in the libc :-/

dir lookup.

<braunr> ?
<braunr> why "ugh" ?
<teythoon> well, I'm inclined to think this is the bad kind of magic ;)
<braunr> do i need to look at the code to understand ?
<teythoon> ok, so I think option 1/ is easily implemented, option 2/ has
  consequences that I cannot fully comprehend
<braunr> same for me
<teythoon> no, but you yourself said that you do not like that kind of
  logic being implemented in the libc
<braunr> well
<braunr> easily
<braunr> i'm not so sure
<braunr> it's easy to code, but i assume checking for magic replies has its
  cost
<teythoon> why not? the code is doing a big switch over the retryname
  supplied by the server
<teythoon> we could stuff getpid() logic in there
<braunr> 14:50 < braunr> it's easy to code, but i assume checking for magic
  replies has its cost
<teythoon> what kind of cost? computational cost?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> the big switch you mentioned
<braunr> run every time a client gets a reply
<braunr> (unless i'm mistaken)
<teythoon> a only for RETRY_MAGICAL replies
<braunr> but you need to test for it
<teythoon>    switch (retryname[0])
<teythoon>      {
<teythoon>      case '/':
<teythoon> ...
<teythoon> that should compile to a jump table, so the cost of adding
  another case should be minimal, no?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> but
<braunr> it's even less than that
<braunr> the real cost is checking for RETRY_MAGICAL
<braunr> 14:55 < teythoon> a only for RETRY_MAGICAL replies
<braunr> so it's basically a if
<braunr> one if, right ?
<teythoon> no, it's switch'ing over doretry
<teythoon> you should pull up the code and see for yourself. it's in
  hurd/lookup-retry.c
<braunr> ok
<braunr> well no, that's not what i'm looking for
<teythoon> it's not o_O
<braunr> i'm looking for what triggers the call to lookup_retry
<braunr> teythoon: hm ok, it's for lookups only, that's decent
<braunr> teythoon: 1/ has the least security implications
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> it could slightly be improved with e.g. a well defined interface
  so a user could preload a library to extend it
<teythoon> extend the whole magic lookup thing?
<braunr> yes
<teythoon> but that is no immediate concern, you are trying to fix
  /proc/self, right?
<braunr> no, i'm thinking about the big picture for x15/propel, keeping the
  current design or doing something else
<teythoon> oh, okay
<braunr> solving /proc/self looks actually very easy
<teythoon> well, I'd say this depends a lot on your trust model then
<teythoon> do you consider servers trusted?
<teythoon> (btw, will there be mutual authentication of clients/servers in
  propel?)
<braunr> there were very interesting discussions about that during the
  l4hurd project
<braunr> iirc, shapiro insisted that using a server without trusting it
  (and there were specific terminology about trusting/relying/etc..) is
  nonsense
<braunr> teythoon: i haven't thought too much about that yet, for now it's
  supposed to be similar to what the hurd does
<teythoon> hm, then again trust is not an on/off thing imho
<braunr> ?
<teythoon> trusting someone to impersonate yourself is a very high level of
  trust
<teythoon> s/is/requires/
<teythoon> the mobile code paper suggests that mutual authentication might
  be a good thing, and I tend to agree
<braunr> i'll have to read that again
<braunr> teythoon: for now (well, when i have time to work on it again
  .. :))
<braunr> i'm focusing on the low level stuff, in a way that won't disturb
  such high level features
<braunr> teythoon: have you found something related to a thread-specific
  port in the proc server ?
<braunr> hurd/process.defs:297: /* You are not expected to understand
  this. */
<braunr> \o/
<teythoon> braunr: no, why would I (the thread related question)
<teythoon> braunr: yes, that comment also cought my eye :/
<braunr> teythoon: because you read a lot of the proc code lately
<braunr> so maybe your view of it is better detailed than mine

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-13

* youpi crosses fingers
<youpi> yay, still boots
<youpi> teythoon: I'm getting a few spurious entries in /proc/mounts
<youpi> none /servers/socket/26 /hurd/pfinet interface=/dev/eth0, etc.
<youpi> /dev/ttyp0 /dev/ttyp0 /hurd/term name,/dev/ptyp0,type,pty-master 0
  0
<youpi> /dev/sd1 /dev/cons ext2fs
  writable,no-atime,no-inherit-dir-group,store-type=typed 0 0
<youpi> fortunately mount drops most of them
<youpi> but not /dev/cons
<youpi> spurious entries in df are getting more and more common on linux
  too anyway...
<youpi> ah, after a console restart, I don't have it any more
<youpi> I'm getting df: `/dev/cons': Operation not supported instead

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-16

<youpi> teythoon: e2fsck does not seem to be seeing that a given filesystem
  is mounted
<youpi> /dev/sd0s1 on /boot type ext2 (rw,no-inherit-dir-group)
<youpi> and still # e2fsck -C 0 /dev/sd0s1
<youpi> e2fsck 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
<youpi> /dev/sd0s1 was not cleanly unmounted, check forced.
<youpi> (yes, both /etc/mtab and /run/mtab point to /proc/mounts)
<tschwinge> Yes, that is a "known" problem.
<youpi> tschwinge: no, it's supposed to be fixed by the mtab translator :)
<pinotree> youpi: glibc's paths.h points to /var/run/mtab (for us)
<tschwinge> youpi: Oh.  But this is by means of mtab presence, and not by
  proper locking?  (Which is at least something, of course!)
<youpi>  /var/run points to /run
<youpi> tschwinge: yes
<youpi> anyway, got to run

Memory Leak

Fixed in 2013-09-28 Hurd commit a81c0c28ea606b0d0a2ad5eeb74071c746b7cdeb (libdiskfs), and 2013-10-04 Hurd commit 98b6f846b628e858acbae9258bac78cf54126d27 (libnetfs).

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-18

<braunr> ext2fs is using a ginormous amount of memory on darnassus since i
  last updated the hurd package :/
<braunr> i wonder if my ext2fs large store patches rework have introduced a
  regression
<braunr> the order of magnitude here is around 1.5G virtual space :/
<braunr> it used to take up to 3 times less before that
<braunr> looks like my patches didn't make it into the latest hurd package
<braunr> teythoon: looks like there definitely is a new leak in ext2fs
<teythoon> :/
<braunr> memory only
<braunr> the number of ports looks stable relative to file system usage
<teythoon> braunr: I tested my patches on my development machine, it's up
  for 14 days (yay libvirt :) and never encountered problems like this
<braunr> i've been building glibc to reach that state
<teythoon> hm, that's a heavy load indeed
<teythoon> could be the file name tracking stuff, I tried to make sure that
  everything is freed, but I might have missed something
<braunr> teythoon: simply running htop run shows a slight, regular increase
  in physical memory usage in ext2fs
<pinotree> old procfs stikes again? :)
<teythoon> braunr: I see that as well... curious...
<braunr> 16:46 < teythoon> could be the file name tracking stuff, I tried
  to make sure that everything is freed, but I might have missed something
<braunr> how knows, maybe completely unrelated
<teythoon> the tracking patch isn't that big, I've gone over it twice today
  and it still seems reasonable to me
<braunr> hm

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-25

<braunr> seems like a small leak per file access
<braunr> but htop makes it obvious because it makes lots of them
<braunr> shouldn't be too hard to find
<braunr> since it might also come from the large store patch, i'll take a
  look at it

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-27

<braunr> teythoon: found the leak :)
<braunr> although its origin is weird
<teythoon> braunr: where is it?
<braunr> i'm still building packages to make sure that's it
<braunr> see
  https://git.sceen.net/hurd/hurd.git/plain/libdiskfs/dir-lookup.c
<braunr> which you changed in
  https://git.sceen.net/hurd/hurd.git/commit/?id=06d49cdadd9e96361f3fe49b9c940b88bb869284
<braunr> line 306 is "return error" instead of "goto out"
<braunr> has been so since 1994
<braunr> what is unclear is why this code path is now run
<braunr> patch is here:
  https://darnassus.sceen.net/~rbraun/0001-Fix-memory-leak-in-libdiskfs.patch
<teythoon> I see, weird indeed
<braunr> teythoon: the system also feels slower somehow
<braunr> such errors might have introduced unexpected retries
<teythoon> i think it's possible to write a coccinelle patch to find such
  errors

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-28

<youpi> braunr: bah, I havent noticed the leak on my box, even after
  building eglibc & hurd several times
<braunr> that's weird
<braunr> are you sure it's up to date ?
<braunr> also, is procfs correctly attached to /proc ?
<braunr> that's what seems to trigger it
<youpi> yes, 20130924-2, with procfs on /proc

<teythoon> braunr: that turned out to be the leak indeed? and somehow my
  changes triggered it? did you discover why?
<braunr> teythoon: yes, yes, no
<braunr> but youpi didn't see the leak on his system
<teythoon> ^^ cool that you found it
<teythoon> I did
<braunr> oh yes you mean you saw the leak
<teythoon> yes

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-01

<braunr> the fix i did in libdiskfs might have fixed other issues
<braunr> apparently, it's the code path taken when error isn't ENOENT,
  including no error (translator started)
<pinotree> the memory leak fix, you mean?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> it might haved fixed reference counting too
<braunr> although i'm not sure if we actually ever run into that issue in
  the past
<braunr> the weird thing is, that path is taken when starting a passive
  translator
<braunr> (i think)
<braunr> (it might be any kind of translator, and just doing nothing if
  alcready active)
<braunr> already*
<braunr> anyway, the fact that the leak was so visible means this code was
  run very often
<braunr> which doesn't make sense
<braunr> hm ok, it seems that code was run every time actually
<braunr> but the leak became visible when it concerned memory
<pinotree> which side-effects did the old code produce?
<braunr> teythoon added a dynamically allocated path that wasn't freed
<braunr> reference leaks
<braunr> which might explain the assertion on reference we sometimes see
  with ext2fs
<braunr> when a counter overflows and becomes 0

ext2fs libports reference counting assertion?

<pinotree> hmm
<braunr> which is why i'm mentioning it
<braunr> :)
<braunr> i'll try to reproduce the assertion
<braunr> pinotree: actually, after a more in-depth look, reference counting
  looks valid before the fix too
<pinotree> ok, thanks for checking
<braunr> pinotree: the assertion affects the root translator, and is
  triggered by a test that stresses memory
<pinotree> memory as in ram, or as in disk storage?
<braunr> malloc
<pinotree> ok
<braunr> i suspect the code doesn't handle memory failure well

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-02

<teythoon_> braunr: btw, did you fix the leak?
<braunr> yes
<braunr>
  https://git.sceen.net/hurd/hurd.git/commit/?id=a81c0c28ea606b0d0a2ad5eeb74071c746b7cdeb
<braunr> 1h after tagging 0.5 (
<braunr> :(
<teythoon> ah yes, I've seen that commit
<teythoon> I just wanted to know whether this settled the issue
<braunr> it does :)
<teythoon> good
<braunr> i still can't figure out why youpi didn't had it
<braunr> the code path is run when no error (actually error != ENOENT)
<braunr> which explains why the leak was so visible
<teythoon> so my patch exposed this b/c of the allocation I added, makes
  sense
<teythoon> it's funny actually, b/c this wasn't an issue for me as well, I
  had my development vm running on that patches for two weeks

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-02

<braunr> libnetfs suffers from the same leak as libdiskfs when looking up a
  translator
<braunr> i'll fix it too

Multiple mtab Translators Spawned

Fixed in 2013-10-05 procfs commit c87688a05a8b49479ee10127470cc60acebead4a?

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-20

<braunr> teythoon: how come i see three mtab translators running ?
<braunr> 6 now oO
<braunr> looks like df -h spawns a few every time
<teythoon> yes, weird...
<braunr> accessing /proc/mounts does actually
<braunr> teythoon: more bug fixing for you :)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-09-23

<teythoon> so it might be a problem with either libnetfs (which afaics has
  never supported passive translator records before) or procfs, but tbh I
  haven't investigated this yet

libnetfs passive translators.

Debian bug #724868

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-03

<braunr> i can't manage to find out where the hurd stores information about
  active translators ...
<braunr> there is this transbox per node
<braunr> but where are nodes stored ?
<braunr> what if they are are dropped ?
<pinotree> braunr: iirc, see libfshelp
<braunr> well i have
<braunr> i still can't find it
<braunr> i fear that it works for ext2fs because that particular translator
  implements a cache of open nodes
<braunr> whereas things like procfs drop and recreate nodes per open
<braunr> which would be the root cause for the multiple mtab bug
<pinotree> doesn't tmpfs support translators?
<braunr> good idea
<braunr> although it's still a libdiskfs based one
<braunr> no problem for tmpfs, so it would be a netfs/procfs issue
<braunr> better than what i feared :)
<braunr> now, how is libdiskfs able to find active translators ..
<braunr> ah, there is a name cache in libdiskfs ..
<braunr> nope, looks fine

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-04

<braunr> nodes with a translator seem to keep a reference in libdiskfs and
  not in libnetfs
<braunr> mhmmpf
<braunr> oh great ..
<braunr> each libdiskfs that "works" seems to implement its own
  diskfs_cached_lookup function
<braunr> so both ext2fs and tmpfs actually maintain a list of nodes,
  keeping a reference on those with a translator
<braunr> while procfs simply doesn't
<braunr> teythoon: ^
<braunr> *sigh*
<teythoon> braunr: ok, thanks, I'll look into that
<braunr> i'm not sure how to fix it
<braunr> we can either fix node destruction to cleanly shut down
  translators
<braunr> but this would mean starting mtab on each access
<braunr> or we could implement a custom cache in procfs
<braunr> or perhaps a very custom change in the lookup callback for mounts
<braunr> i'll try the latter
<teythoon> err, shouldn't we try to fix this in lib*fs?
<braunr> unless you really want to work on it
<braunr> i dont' know
<teythoon> ah, so the node is destroyed but the translator is kept running?
  that's what you mean by the above?
<teythoon> and ext2fs makes an effort of killing it in its node cleanup
  code?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> grmbl, i'm lagging a lot
<braunr> i'm not sure
<braunr> ext2fs maintains it
<braunr> with ext2fs, translators can only be explicitely removed
<braunr> i mean, ext2fs keeps all node descriptors alive once accessed
<braunr> while procfs doesn't
<braunr> teythoon: ok, looks like i have a working patch that merely caches
  the node for mounts

<braunr> i installed my fixed procfs on darnassus, only one mtab :)
<teythoon> nice :)

<braunr> i have a fix for the multiple mtab issue, will send a patch
  tonight

/home Missing

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-04

<braunr> now, why is there no /home in df output ?
<teythoon> not sure
<teythoon> note how /dev/tty* end up in /proc/mounts, those are passive
  translators too, no?
<braunr> yes
<braunr> but that's a good thing i guess
<braunr> or was mounts intended for file systems only ?
<braunr> well, in the unix traditional meaning
<teythoon> I think its nice too, yes
<teythoon> but why are they fine and your /home is not...
<braunr> that's weirder
<braunr> also, mounts actually doesn't show passive translators
<braunr> teythoon: does your code perform any kind of comparison ?
<braunr> i see /servers/socket/26 but not /servers/socket/2
<braunr> s/comparison/filter/g
<teythoon> hmm
<teythoon> well, yes, try /hurd/mtab --insecure /
<teythoon> (I cannot connect to darnassus from here...)
<braunr> ok but that looks unrelated
<braunr> both /servers/socket/26 and /servers/socket/2 refer to the same
  translator
<braunr> i was wondering if mtab was filtering similar entries based on
  that
<teythoon> no
<braunr> that's weird too then, isn't it ?
<teythoon> yes ;)
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> btw, how is that done with the same traanslator being bound to
  two nodes? settrans cannot do that, can it?
<braunr> no it can't
<braunr> the translator does it when started
<teythoon> ah
<braunr> (which means there is a race if both are started simulatneously,
  although it's very rare and not hard to solve)
<teythoon> a weird beaving translator then :)

<braunr> teythoon: if ext2fs is set active, mtab output reports it

<braunr> teythoon: looks like this bug is what allows mtab not to deadlock
<braunr> teythoon: when i attach it as an active translator, cat freezes

<braunr> teythoon: if (control && control->pi.port_right == fsys)
<braunr> that's the filtering i was previously talking about

<braunr> oh please don't name global variables "path" ...

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-06

<antrik> teythoon: pty-s also bind to two nodes, not only pfinet

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-07

<braunr> teythoon: please tell us when you're available, we need to work
  out the last mtab issues
<teythoon> braunr: I'm available now :)
<teythoon> I'm sorry, I've been very busy the last two weeks, but I've
  plenty of time now
<braunr> great :)
<braunr> did you see youpi's mail ?
<braunr> i have the exact same question
<teythoon> I did
<braunr> it seems your code registers active translators
<braunr> but parent translators don't seem to register them when they're
  created from passive translators
<braunr> or am i mistaken ?
<teythoon> I'll need a moment to get my hurd machine and myself up to
  speed...
<teythoon> braunr: I concur with youpi, hooking into fshelp_fetch_root
  should do just fine
<teythoon> I'll just try that
<braunr> ok
<braunr> how do you deal with mtab reporting itself ?
<teythoon> o_O does it do that?
<braunr> no, but it should
<braunr> when i set it as an active translator, i get a deadlock
<braunr> hm
<braunr> teythoon: before you change libfshelp, i'd like you to try
  something else
<braunr> use more appropriate names for global variables in mtab.c
<braunr> in particular, the variable path clashes with local names
<teythoon> noted
<braunr> teythoon: as a side note (i'm not asking to rewrite anything)
<braunr> i strongly recommend a very explicit object oriented style of
  coding
<braunr> (or data-oriented as it's sometimes called)
<braunr> use prefixes for all your interfaces so they can be made public if
  needed (which acts as a namespace and avoids lots of collisions
  naturally)
<braunr> use "constructors" and "destructors" (functions that both allocate
  and initialize)
<braunr> this helps avoiding leaks a lot too
<teythoon> hm, I thought I did that, could you be more specific?
<braunr> ok didn't see the comment
<braunr> /* XXX split up */ error_t mtab_populate (...
<braunr> :)
<braunr> as a better example, see your code in libfshelp/translator-list.c
<braunr> struct translator should have been treated as an object
<braunr> this would probably have completely avoided any leaks in the first
  place
<teythoon> braunr: right, I deviated from that style there
<braunr> teythoon: these are minor details, don't mind them too much, i
  just find it helps me a lot
<teythoon> braunr: sure, I appreciate the feedback :)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-08

<teythoon> braunr: I'm on to the passive translator not getting registered
  issue
<teythoon> however, removing them from the list if the active translator is
  killed does not work as expected... I still need to fiddle with the
  notifications to get this right
<braunr> ok

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-16

<teythoon> braunr: btw, I fixed the 'passive translator not showing up in
  proc/mounts'-issue
<teythoon> but 4 ports do leak each time a translator is killed and
  reinstalled
<teythoon> this happens with passive ones as well as active ones
<braunr> teythoon: is that issue tied to your changed ?
<braunr> changes*
<teythoon> I'm not sure tbh, testing that is on my list of things to do
<braunr> ok
<braunr> first thing to know i guess
<teythoon> yes

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-11-06

<braunr> by the way, did you fix mtab for passive translators ?
<braunr> or make any progress ?
<teythoon> I just cleaned up the patch series
<braunr> ah good
<teythoon> I'm still trying to decide whether I leak any ports

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-11-15

<teythoon> btw, I haven't forgotten about the passive translator not
  showing up in /proc/mounts
<teythoon> I have a patch series, the first patch seems fine, but if I
  build hurd packages with the other two (those that actually hook into
  dir-lookup), strange things happen
<teythoon> on the first boot, everything is fine, passive translators
  showing up in /proc/mounts, nice
<teythoon> but when I reboot, the system kind-of comes back, but something
  is very wrong with many (passive?) translators
<teythoon> the system never recovers, I have no idea whats going on there
<braunr> ok
<braunr> push that work in a branch somewhere for review please
<teythoon> right, thanks
<teythoon> braunr:
  https://darnassus.sceen.net/cgit/teythoon/hurd.git/shortlog/refs/heads/feature-translatorslist-detect-passive-translators

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-04

<youpi> teythoon: did you eventually get any idea about why /proc/mounts is
  missing mounts?
<youpi> e.g. I have /boot as a separate partition, it doesn't show up

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-05

<teythoon> youpi: yes, passive translators are not currently handled
<teythoon> youpi: i have patches for that, but they produce weird results,
  braunr promised to take a look
<braunr> teythoon: hum
<teythoon> ^^
<braunr> i thought they were pending review
<braunr> !
<braunr> where are they again ?
<teythoon>
  https://darnassus.sceen.net/cgit/teythoon/hurd.git/shortlog/refs/heads/feature-translatorslist-detect-passive-translators
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> they are reasonably straight-forward
<teythoon> but cause this funny issue, after the first reboot with the
  patched hurd everything is fine
<teythoon> after the second reboot, everything is weird and broken badly
<braunr> right
<braunr> interesting :)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-06

<braunr> teythoon: is it normal that, if ext2fs is started as an active
  translator for /home, and then for another directory inside my home, mtab
  only reports / and /home and not this third file system ?
<braunr> (with the hurd master version)
<braunr> (the translator for /home is run by root, but the one inside my
  home is started with my uid)
<braunr> (and every component on the path is readable/crossable)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-07

<teythoon_> braunr: well yes, the mtab tool/translator does not follow
  translators bound to nodes not owned by root
<teythoon> braunr: try /hurd/mtab --insecure /home
<braunr> ok
<braunr> good thinking

<teythoon> braunr: did you encounter any problems after the second reboot ?
<braunr> i'm not yet there
<braunr> work still making me busy
<braunr> and i'm trying to isolate the problem first
<braunr> that is, restrict tests to a single leaf translator
<teythoon> you reproduced the weirdness ?
<braunr> teythoon: attempting
<braunr> teythoon: first i'm trying to check a few things
<braunr> teythoon: i'm running my leaf translator as root now
<braunr> active
<braunr> and i still don't see it :/
<braunr> one of the components in the path is not own by root
<braunr> is that a problem ?
<teythoon> no, but maybe the mtab translator should check for that...
<braunr> does it check for the node ownership or the process rights ?
<braunr> credentials, rather
<teythoon> node ownership
<braunr> ah, ok
<braunr> ok i see it now
<braunr> oh, also, it looks like settrans -g on an active translator
  doesn't work, i get ebusy all the time :/
<teythoon> oh ?
<teythoon> that could explain the fs corruption i saw
<teythoon> did i break that ?
<braunr> i don't know
<braunr> maybe
<braunr> i think it was possible in the past

<braunr> teythoon: when isolated, your code works fine
<braunr> i'll try applying it globally
<braunr> btw, how did you do that ?
<braunr> through debian packages ?
<teythoon> i'm trying to get to the point, but i'm still not there
<teythoon> with our uber-buildbot setup i picture myself pushing to a git
  repo, wait a little and get the packages from my deb repo...
<teythoon> for now, i have my hurdtest tool that i used during gsoc
<teythoon> with that i can just drop files into a directory and have that
  overlayed ontop of my test image
<braunr> hum
<braunr> so you replaced the lib*fs libraries directly ?
<braunr> and the static rootfs ?
<teythoon> yes
* teythoon checks
<teythoon> hm, maybe i just missed a file, not sure anymore

<braunr> teythoon: with the new libraries, df -h doesn't see passive
  translators :/
<teythoon> braunr: see /proc/mounts please
<braunr> same
<teythoon> or /hurd/mtab /
<teythoon> weird
<braunr> no :/
<teythoon> b/c when i developed it, i used a test suite to check that every
  combination of tmpfs/ext2fs active/passive and every way to get rid of
  any translator produced the desired results
<teythoon> i'll look into this
<braunr> teythoon: when i remove the active translator i set on /home, i
  get
<braunr> /dev/hd0s1      8.1G  2.0G  5.8G  26% /home
<braunr> hd0s1 being used for / :/
<braunr> this does need reviewing
<teythoon> this is how i expect the system to react currently
<braunr> oh
<teythoon> w/o these patches
<braunr> hm ok
<braunr> well
<braunr> i'm currently using them
<teythoon> including the root fs ?
<braunr> yes
<teythoon> hmpf
<braunr> i have to mention that i merged master into it
<teythoon> i did the same
<teythoon> currently compiling...
<braunr> i only changed libdiskfs, libnetfs and libfshelp
<braunr> is there something else that should be changed ?
<braunr> (i.e. because of inlining ?)
<braunr> i guess i should rebuild a hurd package just to be sure
<kilobug> braunr: isn't the translator for / statically linked ? if so it
  needs to be rebuilt (sorry if I'm saying silly things by popping out of
  nowhere)
<braunr> yes i took care of that

<braunr> teythoon: i've built a hurd package with the three patches and i
  don't see passive translators at all
<teythoon> :/
<braunr> well
<braunr> actually i see a lot of the
<braunr> them
<braunr> just not /home

<teythoon> braunr: please see
  /home/teythoon/build/hurd-upstream/test.{bash,log}
<teythoon> the latter is a log i just created on darnassus
<teythoon> it shows no failures
<teythoon> do you have another translator that is started from a passive
  translator record ?
<teythoon> besides /home, if so, does that show up ?
<braunr> well, as i just said, i can actually see many of them
<teythoon> weird
<braunr> https://darnassus.sceen.net/~rbraun/mounts
<braunr> hm
<braunr> let's try without --sync=
<braunr> ah, now i can see it
<teythoon> can you give me the command line you used before
<teythoon> for the /home translator
<braunr> /hurd/ext2fs --sync=30 /dev/hd0s6
<braunr> but hm
<braunr> i can only see /home when the passive translator is started
<braunr> is that intentional ?
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> and it doesn't work with --sync=30 o_O
<braunr> so, actually, mtab doesn't report passive translators
<teythoon> no
<braunr> it reports active ones only, whether they're started manually or
  from passive translators
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> ok
<braunr> that's good enough
<braunr> reporting passive translators wouldprobably require a complete
  scan
<teythoon> yes, that was deemed not feasible
<braunr> right
<braunr> i can't reproduce any weirdness
<teythoon> good
<braunr> it seems to just work well
<braunr> except this option parsing problem
<teythoon> thanks for looking into this
<teythoon> yeah
<braunr> sur
<braunr> e
<braunr> thanks for reminding me :)
<teythoon> the actual fix is implementing fsys_get_source
<braunr> i forgot that "pending review" was my review here he
<teythoon> which should actually be file_get_source

<braunr> teythoon: why does mtab report errors for /proc/swaps and
  /xconsole ?
<teythoon> not sure

<teythoon> btw, i build hurd packages with my patches and it reliably
  wreaks havoc on my test vms ...
<braunr> now that's really weird
<braunr> are you certain everything has been cleaned since your manual
  replacement of the libraries ?
<teythoon> yes, i use mainly throwaway-vms for such experiments
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> did you include the debian patches ?
<braunr> yes
<teythoon> so did i
<braunr> i based my work on my own packages
<braunr> with thread destruction
<braunr> i'll redo it from the sid ones
<braunr> but before, i guess i should share mine with you
<braunr> so you can test them in your vms
<braunr> we may simply have different configurations
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> something we might have missed just like the --sync parameter

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-08

<braunr> teythoon: hello
<braunr> see https://darnassus.sceen.net/~rbraun/teythoon/ for the custom
  hurd packages
<braunr> they need thread destruction so get the latest gnumach package
  from unstable, and the libc packages from my repository first

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-09

<teythoon> braunr: your packages indeed seem to work
<teythoon> and with mine i encounter a different problem, the proc server
  crashes *very* early
<teythoon> this is w/o a rebuilt libc
<teythoon> different as in not the weird one i remember having back when i
  wrote those patches
<braunr> hum
<braunr> you're using all my glibc/hurd packages right ?
<teythoon> your packages work fine
<braunr> i wonder if your bug is caused by
  2c9422595f41635e2f4f7ef1afb7eece9001feae
<teythoon> mine don't
<braunr> (or rather, not having it)
<braunr> look at the patches i've added
<braunr> it's included, and i remember i really needed it
<braunr> althouhg it was just about a leak
<braunr> hm
<braunr> i don't know :/
<braunr> but i strongly suspect your patches are ok
<braunr> and something else is wrong
<teythoon> why would my packages miss that patch ?
<braunr> hum
<braunr> are you testing with your packages built from upstream sources ?
<teythoon> always
<braunr> upstream hurd against debian glibc ?
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> check the patches again
<teythoon> what patches ?
<braunr> the debian ones that you don't include
<braunr> another thing you can do is
<teythoon> err
<braunr> get the latest debian hurd package
<braunr> add your patch only
<braunr> rebuild
<teythoon> i use hurd upstream + all the debian stuff
<braunr> that's weird
<braunr> but hurd upstream has received quite a lot of patches
<braunr> please try from debian hurd + your patch only

<teythoon> braunr: i'm afraid it might be your patch 3a3fcc81 that breaks
  proc

libpthread set stack size.

<braunr> teythoon: but anyway, it does look like your patches are actually
  fine
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> i'll install my packages on darnassus and test a bit more
<teythoon> there is an issue however
<braunr> ah
<teythoon> grep sd2s1 /proc/mounts
<teythoon> /dev/sd2s1 /dev/sd2s1 /hurd/storeio writable 0 0
<teythoon> that makes fsck think that /dev/sd2s1 is mounted
<braunr> hmpf
<teythoon> which makes debians fsck magic (when using sysvinit) drop to a
  root shell at boot time
<braunr> why does it report a mount point ?
<braunr> or even a device
<braunr> why not none /dev/sd2s1 ?
<teythoon> b/c of the heuristic it uses
<teythoon> and i know, you told me it's a bad idea
<braunr> i did ?
<teythoon> probably
<braunr> hm
<braunr> we said so many things i don't remember
<braunr> but that doesn't look too hard to fix
<teythoon> well, i'll just have to make translators provide meaningful
  get_source responses
<teythoon> and get rid of the heuristic
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> so if you use passive translators for the mounts, and not
  /etc/fstab, you should be fine
<teythoon> my "traditional" hurd systems are
<braunr> teythoon: i'll wait a bit before deplying it on darnassus then

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-13

<braunr> teythoon: does your latest patch series take care of --sync ?
<teythoon> yeah, i finally got why the hurd would react strangely after an
  reboot, it was umount --all removing vital passive translator records
<teythoon> i never had any issues with --sync
<braunr> ah, umount -a
<braunr> hm
<braunr> do you recall i did :) ?
<teythoon> umount -a was only run with the sysvinit scripts, that's why you
  didn't see that issue, only me
<teythoon> yes, i do
<braunr> yes, i see
<teythoon> however, i'm also using --sync 30 on my fs
<braunr> ok so you couldn't reproduce that particular issue
<braunr> hum
<braunr> try --sync=30
<teythoon> showtrans /media/scratch
<teythoon> /hurd/ext2fs --sync=30 /dev/sd1s1
<teythoon> works fine
<braunr> now that's weird :)
<teythoon> then again, previously there was another bug
<braunr> but then the patches i've tested are not the complete series you
  sent
<teythoon> in the dir lookup function, if a passive translator is started
<teythoon> say, if i first access /proc/foo, /proc/foo would be recorded,
  not /proc
<teythoon> i fixed that yesterday
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> maybe it was b/c of that
<braunr> but hm
<braunr> why would /proc be recorded ?
<teythoon> now ?
<braunr> i mean, /proc should be recorded at /, and /foo at /proc
<braunr> right ?
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> and that wasn't the case ?
<teythoon> but what happened was that proc/foo was recorded as a child
  translator for /
<braunr> ohh
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> i see
<braunr> well, i'm not sure it's that bug, since the translator involved
  was on /home
<teythoon> same problem
<teythoon> it's unlikely that the translator was started b/c of a /home
  lookup
<teythoon> much more likely that the first lookup is /home/someone
<braunr> yes
<braunr> but mtab correctly reported /home without --sync, and not when the
  option was present
<braunr> and that part doesn't quite make sense to me
<teythoon> how did you trigger the startup
<teythoon> ?
<braunr> ssh i believe
<teythoon> hm
<teythoon> anyways, i could not reproduce this issue
<braunr> do you have packages somewhere i can test ?
<teythoon> yes
<braunr> oh and btw
<teythoon> https://darnassus.sceen.net/~teythoon/hurd-ci/
<braunr> something you could do to deal with umount -a
<braunr> but i guess that's what you did already
<braunr> is to only shut the active translator down
<teythoon>
  https://git.sceen.net/hurd/hurd.git/commit/?id=0033d20449b3bb558f2ea470983018db39b572aa
<teythoon> yeah, i thought about that
<teythoon> but i believe that is not the right hting to do
<braunr> yes i know but i'm not sure that's the right approach
<braunr> hm :)
<teythoon> b/c if on linux you do umount /foo && ls /foo, foo will be empty
<braunr> yours is probably more posix-friendly
<teythoon> if the passive translator lookup is left, /foo will be restarted
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> s/lookup/record/
<braunr> that's one reason i'm not very fond of passive translators tbh
<teythoon> yep
<braunr> i'd reserve them as a user-oriented hurd-specific feature
<braunr> anything that must behave as mount/umount expects has to be active
  anyway
<braunr> ok let's give a quick shot at your packages :)

<braunr> teythoon: works fine :)
<braunr> mtab still reports console entries though
<braunr> is tha texpected ?
<teythoon> braunr: kind of
<teythoon> braunr: /bin/console is a netfs-based translator, probably for
  multiplexing, dunno exactly
<braunr> i see

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-14

<youpi> teythoon: passive translators do work fine in mtab now, thanks :)
<braunr> indeed :)

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-02-11

<antrik> another topic: what's the rationale again behind umount removing
  passive translators?...
<teythoon> antrik: umount is for compatibility with unixoid systems
<teythoon> consider umount /foo; ls /foo
<teythoon> if umount would leave the passive translator record on /foo,
  /foo would be started again
<antrik> but mount never creates passive translators, right?
<antrik> so why would umount remove them? they are none of its business...
<teythoon> sure, you can see it this way
<teythoon> still, i like the way it is now, hence i implemented it this way
  ;)
<youpi> teythoon: but then umount -a unmounts all passive translators
<youpi> include ~joe/http:/
<youpi> s/include/including/
<youpi> I tend to agree with antrik
<teythoon> i won't oppose a change of course
<teythoon> and yes, we have seen problems b/c of that. otoh those can be
  fixed (and they are, i just sent a patch fixing that)
<youpi> teythoon: well, it's not only about http:, joe user may want to
  mount its own iso image, or whatever
<teythoon> thats true
<teythoon> no
<teythoon> it's not
<teythoon> /proc/mounts does not contain translators bound to nodes that do
  not belong to root
<teythoon> but sure, we can change umount
<braunr> i agree
<braunr> active translators can be viewed as unix mounts
<braunr> passive translators are an entirely hurdish feature
<braunr> but then, servers such as pflocal and pfinet shouldn't probably
  not be passive translators
<antrik> braunr: shouldn't not? what are you trying to say? :-)
<braunr> woops
<braunr> i'm not trying to make this unconfusingly clearer
<braunr> :p
<braunr> pflocal and pfinet should probably be active translators
<antrik> why?
<braunr> hum wait
<braunr> i had a reason weeks ago
<braunr> but now it looks the opposite is better actually :p
<braunr> so that they don't appear in mounts
<braunr> but aiui, there is another property that is tested to make
  translators appear in mounts
<antrik> hm... I know this question has been discussed when first talking
  about an mtab translator years ago... but don't remember whether there
  was any conclusion
<antrik> I think one of the ideas was that translators would opt in for
  being considered as mounts...
<braunr> it makes sense to only have file systems in mounts anyway
<antrik> instead of going by the translator type, another option might be
  ignoring anything that is backed by a passive translator?...
<antrik> or have a startup option (perhaps with some "smart" defaults) to
  request a translator to manifest as a mount or not
<antrik> so many ideas... ;-)

coreutils' df

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-01-24

<braunr> gnu_srs: "df: Warning: cannot read table of mounted file systems:
  No such file or directory"
<braunr> you should be able to fix that easily

IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2014-02-03

<pere>  /run/mtab also seem to be missing.  df do not work.
<teythoon> that's a libc bug

IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2014-02-05

<gg0> i had to ln -s /proc/mounts /var/run/mtab to make df work, what's the
  proper fix?
<gg0> (here sysvinit+openrc)
<youpi> gg0: the proper fix for df is to fix the coreutils build

<pere> I checked the mtab problem, and /etc/hurd/runsystem.gnu via
  /etc/hurd/rc fixes the symlink, while runsystem.sysv do not. I suspect
  /etc/init.d/checkroot.sh should fix the symlink too.
<youpi> well, atm df looks at /var/run/mtab instead of /etc/mtab only
  because it hasn't been rebuilt against a recent glibc, that's all
<youpi> but we can brownpaperbag fix it, yes
<pere> right.  so perhaps that is the bug to fix?
<youpi> yes, it is
<youpi> it depends on coreutils actually building
<teythoon> youpi: i thought the proper way to fix the /var/run/mtab issue
  is to patch the libc ?
<youpi> it is
<teythoon> the libc defines some macro, on linux it expands to /etc/mtab,
  on hurd to /var/run/mtab
<youpi> but you need to rebuild coreutils to get a fixed df
<teythoon> ok, right
<pere> should it be /var/run/mtab or /etc/mtab on hurd?  the former seem
  more correct, but /run/mtab give more sense given that it should be
  available also before /var/ is mounted.
<youpi> to be honest, I don't really care
<youpi> and I thus tend to agree on sticking with what linux does
<youpi> to avoid issues
<youpi> as in: keep debian working mostly the same on all kernels, to avoid
  issue
<youpi> s
<pere> well, linux really should move that file away from /etc/ too. :)
<youpi> pere: ok, but let's move at the same time
<youpi> rather than hitting bugs ourselves
<pere> perhaps df should use /proc/mount instead, and get rid of the
  problem completely...
<youpi> that can be a way, too

<pere> I believe <URL: http://bugs.debian.org/737759 > is a good fix for
  the mtab problem.

<rleigh> WRT /etc/mtab the main reason for keeping it is solely for
  compatibility; there's no reason not to use /proc/mounts directly (or
  /run/mtab if we want a kernel-agnostic location).  Whether it's worth
  doing something like that is debatable.
<rleigh> The main issue with doing stuff like this nowadays is that you get
  shouted at by all the systemd people for making changes...

Memory Leak in translator_ihash_cleanup

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-10-04

<braunr> teythoon: isn't there a leak in translator_ihash_cleanup ?
<teythoon> braunr: looks like, yes
<teythoon> braunr: I probably forgot to add the free (element->name) when I
  added the name field
<braunr> teythoon: ok
<braunr> teythoon: i let you fix that :p
<teythoon> braunr: sure ;)

chroot

IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2014-03-05

In context of nightly builds deb packages.

<gg0> installer gets stuck running os-prober, seems because
  /target/proc/mounts gets unreadable, sometimes Resource lost sometimes it
  gets stuck reading it
<gg0> there are two proc translators: one /proc, one /target/proc
<gg0> anything known that could have broken /target one?
<gg0> anything else to check?
<gg0> what's unusual is that cat'ing /proc takes few seconds before giving
  output. does initrd slow down things?
<gg0> */proc/mounts
<gg0> what does "Resource lost" mean? i get it since the beginning of
  install

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2014-03-05

<gg0> debian installer mounts installation disk under /target then probably
  it debootstraps on it
<gg0> we have 2 procfs: one outside, one inside /target
<gg0> outside it works fine, inside cat'ing /proc/mounts it gives Resource
  lost the first time. the second one it gets stuck
<gg0> oh there's only one /hurd/mtab though. inside one might have bought
  the farm, correct?
<braunr> ?
<gg0> two /proc/mounts means you have to have two mtab translators afaiu
<gg0> i can't reproduce on a clean chroot
<teythoon> gg0: two mtab instances should be fine
<teythoon> also, the one under /target should only list translators "under
<teythoon> "under" /target
<gg0> teythoon: yeah i restart the dead one but at first access i get
  "Resource lost" again and mtab dies
<teythoon> hm
<gg0> wait
<gg0> "Resource lost" means mtab is not running
<teythoon> are you sure ?
<teythoon> the mtab translator queries other translators
<teythoon> that can lead to the delay you described
<teythoon> and severe enough errors are handed back to the client, e.g. if
  mtab itself gets resource lost on the very first translator it queries
<gg0> i'd like to clean up chroot proc and mtab stuff but settrans -fg gets
  stuck
<gg0> or it gives
<gg0> settrans: /proc/mounts: Computer bought the farm
<gg0> settrans: /proc/mounts: Operation not supported
<teythoon> gg0: try settrans --recursive ...
<teythoon> then again, i never used this and it should work without, no ?
<gg0> same behavior
<gg0> root@hurd01:~# settrans --recursive -fg sid-chroot/proc/mounts
<gg0> settrans: sid-chroot/proc/mounts: Computer bought the farm
<gg0> root@hurd01:~# settrans --recursive -fg sid-chroot/proc/mounts
<gg0> settrans: sid-chroot/proc/mounts: Operation not supported
<gg0> root@hurd01:~# settrans --recursive -fg sid-chroot/proc/mounts
<teythoon> hm
<gg0> (last got stuck)
<teythoon> eh, i thought of settrans --recursive -fg sid-chroot
<gg0> i doesn't work. it gives no output but showtrans shows translators
  didn't go away
<teythoon> showtrans shows passive translator records
<gg0> ah
<teythoon> better use fsysopts to query the active one
<gg0> both still active, even with fsysopts
<teythoon> hm
<teythoon> i recently improved the mtab translator, but that change has not
  made its way into debian yet
* gg0 adding hurd-ci

nightly builds deb packages.

<gg0> btw Resource lost/mtab dying i can't reproduce on hurd01 seems
  breaking debian installer
<gg0> teythoon: dist-upgraded hurd-ci, it behaves pretty same way besides
  settrans -fg sid-chroot/proc/mounts gives "Operation not supported" right
  away, without "Computer..farm" first
<gg0> following attempts it simply gets stuck
<braunr> time to quickdraw gdb :p
<gg0> teythoon: i think easy to reproduce, just need to debootstrap
<gg0> anything stronger than -fg?
<teythoon> kill
<gg0> well mtab has been already manually killed
<gg0> i could kill procfs too
<teythoon> yes, but then it seems to me that the translator linking in
  netfs is buggy
<braunr> kill -KILL :p
<teythoon> :D
<teythoon> aka double kill
<gg0> ok by killing chroot procfs then accessing sid-chroot/proc/mounts
  makes both restarting
<teythoon> ok, even more likely to be a netfs issue then
<teythoon> which is to be expected
<teythoon> afaik procfs is the first netfs based translator to support
  passive translator records
<braunr> it is
<gg0> did the same on debian installer machine: both restarted, cat
  /target/proc/mounts -> Resource lost
<gg0> and mtab died
<gg0> Computer wanted to buy the farm but it was out of resources

IRC, OFTC, #debian-hurd, 2014-03-05

<gg0> btw problem is cat /target/proc/mounts gives Resource lost, what
  package could cause that?
<gg0> and mtab dies
<youpi> Resource lost often means the same as Computer bought the farm:
  some translator has died somehow
<youpi> or dropped something
<gg0> procfs+mtab outside /target work well. inside mtab crashes
<gg0> http://postimg.org/image/vgz541z81/
<gg0> tbh i unmounted a couple, they are not all fs mounted by install, a
  couple missing
<gg0> could any of them cause mtab crash?
<youpi> see ldd /hurd/mtab
<youpi> it only uses hurd libraries and pthread
<gg0> hurd libs and pthread _outside_ chroot, right?
<youpi> in principle it's the outside /hurd/mtab which gets triggered
<youpi> since the /target ext2fs doesn't know people use it chrooted
<youpi> do you have two processes?
<youpi> (mtab processes I mean)
<gg0> yes two mtabs children of their two procfs
<youpi> k
<youpi> and does setting up an mtab translator by hand gets the same?
<gg0> to restart mtab i have to kill its father procfs
<youpi> tell that to teythoon, not me, he implemented the thing :)
<gg0> then first access to /proc/mounts should make procfs and mtab restart
<gg0> yeah there's already been some troubleshooting on #hurd
<teythoon> youpi: i suspect some bugs in netfs translator linking
<teythoon> procfs is the first netfs based translator to make use of
  passive translators
<gg0> you can see dead mtab and os-prober trying to grep /proc/mounts
  http://postimg.org/image/z4fm981p7/
<gg0> well, there can't be problems on /target if there's not /target yet