Bug#486826: multipathd: suspicious file descriptors

[Ferenc Wagner]

Package: multipath-tools
Version: 0.4.8-8
Severity: normal

Hi,

After aptitude installing multipath-tools on a Lenny system,

$ sudo ls -l /proc/$(pgrep multipathd)/fd
total 0
lr-x------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 0 -> /dev/null
l-wx------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 1 -> /dev/console
l-wx------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 2 -> /dev/console
l-wx------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 22 -> pipe:[12280]
l-wx------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 3 -> /var/run/multipathd.pid
lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 4 -> socket:[12566]
lr-x------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 5 -> /var/lib/dpkg/triggers/File
lr-x------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 6 -> /dev/xvda1
lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 7 -> socket:[12567]
lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2008-06-18 12:12 8 -> socket:[12569]

Of these 1,2 and 5 looks rather suspicious to my untrained eyes:

 * Shouldn't a daemon process always use /dev/null as stdin/stdout/stderr?

 * And why does it keep /var/lib/dpkg/triggers/File open?  That's dpkg's
   business exclusively, isn't it?

File descriptor 3, hanging on the PID file, is also mildly suspicious.

/dev/xvda1 is the only block device in the system (besides the ramdisks),
but that should not be multipathed.  Oh well, maybe multipathd can't know this.

The sockets seem reasonable (based on /proc/net/unix), but how could I find out
what the pipe is for?  /proc/*/fd reveals writers only.

If it matters, the multipath kernel driver is not yet loaded.

I hope at least some of the above isn't stupid noise.
Regards,
Feri.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.24-1-xen-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages multipath-tools depends on:
ii  initscripts               2.86.ds1-59    Scripts for initializing and shutt
ii  kpartx                    0.4.8-8        create device mappings for partiti
ii  libaio1                   0.3.106-8      linux kernel aio access library - 
ii  libc6                     2.7-10         GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libdevmapper1.02.1        2:1.02.25-1    The Linux Kernel Device Mapper use
ii  libncurses5               5.6+20080308-1 Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii  libreadline5              5.2-3          GNU readline and history libraries
ii  lsb-base                  3.2-12         Linux Standard Base 3.2 init scrip
ii  udev                      0.114-2        /dev/ and hotplug management daemo

multipath-tools recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information