[Debconf-devel] Bug#589487: pawserv: "postinst configure" hangs

[Colin Watson]

reassign 589487 pawserv 2006.dfsg.2-14
thanks

On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 03:43:47AM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> This seems to be a race condition in debconf, not a bug in the postinst
> script (which doesn't do anything very interesting).  I was able to
> reproduce it only once.  The debconf frontend was blocked on read while
> the postinst script had exited and was a zombie.
> 
> (I don't really understand this behaviour as read on a pipe should
> return as soon as the process at the other end of the pipe exits.  So it
> could even be a bug in the kernel, though that seems unlikely.)

I doubt that this is the problem.  What's happening is that
pawserv.postinst calls update-inetd, which in some circumstances can
restart inetd.  Thus inetd is left holding the debconf pipe open and
debconf never realises that the postinst has exited.

The simple fix should be to put 3>&- at the end of each of the
update-inetd invocations, so that update-inetd is always disconnected
from debconf.

Regards,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at debian.org]