Bug#1142978: systemd: daemon-reload causes ABRT or mark newly started service as dead

[Georg Müller]

To assure that the systemd alias bug (fixed with https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/39703)
might be the one in charge, I checked by removing the "Alias=" line from ssh.service and
repeated the test (reset VM, start VM, send commands) and could not trigger the problem.

Am 29.07.26 um 11:21 schrieb Georg Müller:
> Package: systemd
> Version: 257.13-1~deb13u1
> Severity: normal
> X-Debbugs-Cc: georgmueller at gmx.net
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> I ran into a problem by calling 'systemctl start ssh.service; systemctl enable ssh.service'.
> 
> My observation was that the ssh.service was in state 'inactive (dead)' even though
> it was running. systemctl status still showed the correct MainPID and the process
> in the cgroup.
> 
> This is reproducible (always resetted to a snapshot of a VM) in about 50% of my tries.
> 
> I once even ran into an ABRT in src/core/service.c service_sigchld_event() state switch,
> pointing to an invalid state (default: assert_not_reached()), I unfortunately have
> no backtrace of this.
> 
> The 'systemctl enable' command triggers a daemon-reload.
> 
> I think this is related to upstream bug https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/39703 .
> 
> ssh.service has alias sshd.service, which might be the cause of the problem.
> 
> This fix is backported to the upstream v258-stable branch and newer, but not to v257,
> as this is probably too old.
> 
> I would like to have this patch added to the debian patches to fix the issue.
> 
> -- Package-specific info:
> 
> -- System Information:
> Debian Release: 13.6
> Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
> 
> Kernel: Linux 7.0.12+deb13-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
> Kernel taint flags: TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
> Locale: LANG=, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
> Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
> Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
> 
> Versions of packages systemd depends on:
> ii  libacl1            2.3.2-2+b1
> ii  libapparmor1       4.1.0-1
> ii  libc6              2.41-12+deb13u3
> ii  libmount1          2.41-5
> ii  libpam0g           1.7.0-5
> ii  libseccomp2        2.6.0-2
> ii  libselinux1        3.8.1-1
> ii  libssl3t64         3.5.6-1~deb13u2
> ii  libsystemd-shared  257.13-1~deb13u1
> ii  libsystemd0        257.13-1~deb13u1
> ii  mount              2.41-5
> 
> Versions of packages systemd recommends:
> ii  dbus [default-dbus-system-bus]   1.16.2-2
> ii  linux-sysctl-defaults            4.12.1
> pn  systemd-cryptsetup               <none>
> ii  systemd-timesyncd [time-daemon]  257.13-1~deb13u1
> 
> Versions of packages systemd suggests:
> pn  libtss2-tcti-device0  <none>
> pn  polkitd               <none>
> pn  systemd-boot          <none>
> pn  systemd-container     <none>
> pn  systemd-homed         <none>
> pn  systemd-repart        <none>
> ii  systemd-resolved      257.13-1~deb13u1
> pn  systemd-userdbd       <none>
> 
> Versions of packages systemd is related to:
> pn  dbus-user-session  <none>
> pn  dracut             <none>
> ii  initramfs-tools    0.148.4
> pn  libnss-systemd     <none>
> ii  libpam-systemd     257.13-1~deb13u1
> ii  udev               257.13-1~deb13u1
> 
> -- no debconf information