Bug#528497: asterisk: false EX-CANARY message on startup

[Tzafrir Cohen]

Package: asterisk
Version: 1:1.6.1.0~dfsg-1
Severity: normal

Sometimes (most notably on boot) Asterisk would give the strange "dead
canary" message:

  Setting up asterisk (1:1.6.1.0~dfsg-0.7196) ...
  Starting Asterisk PBX: The canary is no more.  He has ceased to be!
  He's expired and gone to meet his maker!  He's a stiff!  Bereft of life,
  he rests in peace.  His metabolic processes are now history!  He's off
  the twig!  He's kicked the bucket.  He's shuffled off his mortal coil,
  run down the curtain, and joined the bleeding choir invisible!!  THIS is
  an EX-CANARY.  (Reducing priority)
  asterisk.

When Asterisk runs in real-time scheduling priority (-p, the default in
Debian), it may not be so nice if it gets into a 100% CPU loop. Thus as
of Asterisk 1.6.0 there is a separate Asterisk Canary" child process
that runs at a normal priorty and writes every 5 seconds to 

  /var/run/asterisk/alt.asterisk.canary.tweet.tweet.tweet

While the canary is tweeting, we know Asterisk is not taking 100% CPU
time. If Asterisk notices nobody updates the file, it responds by
dropping the real-time scheduling priority.

For most Lenny and above systems this feature is not really needed
anyway, because as of kernel 2.6.25, the "real-time scheduling priority"
will not resort to taking only 95% CPU time after a while.

The issue at hand seems to be
https://issues.asterisk.org/view.php?id=15093 .
However maybe we should just drop this feature until the upstream issue
is fixed? It mostly adds noise.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-1-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=he_IL.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=he_IL.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages asterisk depends on:
ii  adduser            3.110                 add and remove users and groups
ii  asterisk-config    1:1.4.21.2~dfsg-3     Configuration files for Asterisk
ii  asterisk-sounds-ma 1:1.4.21.2~dfsg-3     Core Sound files for Asterisk (Eng
ii  libasound2         1.0.16-2              ALSA library
ii  libc-client2007b   7:2007b~dfsg-4+lenny3 c-client library for mail protocol
ii  libc6              2.7-18                GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcap2            2.11-2                support for getting/setting POSIX.
ii  libcurl3           7.18.2-8              Multi-protocol file transfer libra
ii  libgcc1            1:4.3.2-1.1           GCC support library
ii  libgsm1            1.0.12-1              Shared libraries for GSM speech co
ii  libiksemel3        1.2-4                 C library for the Jabber IM platfo
ii  libncurses5        5.7+20081213-1        shared libraries for terminal hand
ii  libnewt0.52        0.52.2-11.3           Not Erik's Windowing Toolkit - tex
ii  libogg0            1.1.3-4               Ogg Bitstream Library
ii  libpopt0           1.14-4                lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libpq5             8.3.5-1               PostgreSQL C client library
ii  libpri1.0          1.4.3-2               Primary Rate ISDN specification li
ii  libradiusclient-ng 0.5.5-1               Enhanced RADIUS client library
ii  libsnmp15          5.4.1~dfsg-12         SNMP (Simple Network Management Pr
ii  libspeex1          1.2~rc1-1             The Speex codec runtime library
ii  libspeexdsp1       1.2~rc1-1             The Speex extended runtime library
ii  libsqlite0         2.8.17-4              SQLite shared library
ii  libssl0.9.8        0.9.8g-15             SSL shared libraries
ii  libstdc++6         4.3.2-1.1             The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libtonezone1       1:1.4.11~dfsg-3       tonezone library (runtime)
ii  libvorbis0a        1.2.0.dfsg-3.1        The Vorbis General Audio Compressi
ii  libvorbisenc2      1.2.0.dfsg-3.1        The Vorbis General Audio Compressi
ii  libvpb0            4.2.38-1              Voicetronix telephony hardware use
ii  unixodbc           2.2.11-16             ODBC tools libraries
ii  zlib1g             1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-12     compression library - runtime

asterisk recommends no packages.

Versions of packages asterisk suggests:
ii  asterisk-dev           1:1.4.21.2~dfsg-3 Development files for Asterisk
pn  asterisk-doc           <none>            (no description available)
pn  asterisk-h323          <none>            (no description available)
pn  ekiga                  <none>            (no description available)
ii  kphone                 1:4.2-7~etch.4794 Voice over IP (VoIP) phone applica
pn  ohphone                <none>            (no description available)
ii  twinkle                1:1.2-3           Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP

-- no debconf information