[gentoo-user] Why is /tmp/jack busy?

[gentoo-user] Why is /tmp/jack busy?

[Mark Knecht]

and what's with this time stamp value?

When I boot this machine it gets to a point where it says something
like 'Wiping /tmp...' and then I see a message 'Unable to remove
./jack' and then something about the device or directory being busy.
When I log in as root and try to remove it by hand this is the
results:

lightning tmp # ls -la
total 24
drwxrwxrwt  5 root root 8192 2008-06-28 07:12 .
drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 4096 2008-05-04 18:23 ..
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root 4096 2008-06-28 07:10 .ICE-unix
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root   40 2008-06-28 00:10 jack
-r--r--r--  1 root root   11 2008-06-28 07:10 .X0-lock
drwxrwxrwt  2 root root 4096 2008-06-28 07:10 .X11-unix
lightning tmp # rm -rf jack/
rm: cannot remove directory `jack': Device or resource busy
lightning tmp #

Two questions to start:

1) If /tmp/jack is really busy then who is using it? This machine was
cold booted 9 minutes ago and Jack (the sound connection machine)
isn't running:

lightning tmp # ps aux | grep jack
root      5635  0.0  0.0   4096   696 pts/0    R+   07:20   0:00 grep
--colour=auto jack
lightning tmp #

2) The machine hasn't run Linux in a couple of days. If I booted this
morning at 7:10 AM then how can /tmp/jack have a time stamp of 00:10?

There is nothing in /tmp/jack and I'd like to remove it and get rid of
this boot message. (The message has been there for months. Nothing
new. Just finally got tired of seeing it!)

Thanks in advance,
Mark
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Re: [gentoo-user] Why is /tmp/jack busy?

[PaulNM]

Mark Knecht wrote:
> and what's with this time stamp value?
> 
> When I boot this machine it gets to a point where it says something
> like 'Wiping /tmp...' and then I see a message 'Unable to remove
> ./jack' and then something about the device or directory being busy.
> When I log in as root and try to remove it by hand this is the
> results:
> 
> lightning tmp # ls -la
> total 24
> drwxrwxrwt  5 root root 8192 2008-06-28 07:12 .
> drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 4096 2008-05-04 18:23 ..
> drwxrwxrwt  2 root root 4096 2008-06-28 07:10 .ICE-unix
> drwxrwxrwt  2 root root   40 2008-06-28 00:10 jack
> -r--r--r--  1 root root   11 2008-06-28 07:10 .X0-lock
> drwxrwxrwt  2 root root 4096 2008-06-28 07:10 .X11-unix
> lightning tmp # rm -rf jack/
> rm: cannot remove directory `jack': Device or resource busy
> lightning tmp #
> 
> Two questions to start:
> 
> 1) If /tmp/jack is really busy then who is using it? This machine was
> cold booted 9 minutes ago and Jack (the sound connection machine)
> isn't running:
> 
> lightning tmp # ps aux | grep jack
> root      5635  0.0  0.0   4096   696 pts/0    R+   07:20   0:00 grep
> --colour=auto jack
> lightning tmp #
> 

Try lsof: "lsof /tmp/jack" or "lsof | grep jack" since I'm not sure if 
lsof works on directories alone.

Also, are you sure /tmp/jack is empty? Did you "ls -a" ?

> Thanks in advance,
> Mark


HTH,
	PaulNM
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Re: [gentoo-user] Why is /tmp/jack busy?

[Mark Knecht]

On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 12:08 PM, PaulNM <gentoo@paulscrap.com> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> and what's with this time stamp value?
>>
>> When I boot this machine it gets to a point where it says something
>> like 'Wiping /tmp...' and then I see a message 'Unable to remove
>> ./jack' and then something about the device or directory being busy.
>> When I log in as root and try to remove it by hand this is the
>> results:
>>
>> lightning tmp # ls -la
>> total 24
>> drwxrwxrwt  5 root root 8192 2008-06-28 07:12 .
>> drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 4096 2008-05-04 18:23 ..
>> drwxrwxrwt  2 root root 4096 2008-06-28 07:10 .ICE-unix
>> drwxrwxrwt  2 root root   40 2008-06-28 00:10 jack
>> -r--r--r--  1 root root   11 2008-06-28 07:10 .X0-lock
>> drwxrwxrwt  2 root root 4096 2008-06-28 07:10 .X11-unix
>> lightning tmp # rm -rf jack/
>> rm: cannot remove directory `jack': Device or resource busy
>> lightning tmp #
>>
>> Two questions to start:
>>
>> 1) If /tmp/jack is really busy then who is using it? This machine was
>> cold booted 9 minutes ago and Jack (the sound connection machine)
>> isn't running:
>>
>> lightning tmp # ps aux | grep jack
>> root      5635  0.0  0.0   4096   696 pts/0    R+   07:20   0:00 grep
>> --colour=auto jack
>> lightning tmp #
>>
>
> Try lsof: "lsof /tmp/jack" or "lsof | grep jack" since I'm not sure if lsof
> works on directories alone.
>
> Also, are you sure /tmp/jack is empty? Did you "ls -a" ?
>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Mark
>
>
> HTH,
>        PaulNM

Hi Paul,
   Yes, ls -al shown nothing is there.

   Actually, I think the root cause of this is a little different than
I expected. /tmp/jack is actually something that's mounted:

lightning ~ # df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
<SNIP>
none                    508016         0    508016   0% /tmp/jack

and the root cause of that is that it's in my fstab file:

lightning ~ # cat /etc/fstab | grep jack
none 			/tmp/jack 	tmpfs 		defaults 	0 0
lightning ~ #

   So, there are three directions to go:

1) Remove it from fstab and figure out what the repercussions of that
action might be.

2) Understand why the Gentoo boot process want to wipe mounted
directories in /tmp since it won't work.

3) Go back to ignoring it.

   I'm going to investigate #1 first as this is something that I think
is left over from years ago, but maybe you or someone else has another
idea.

Thanks,
Mark
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Re: [gentoo-user] Why is /tmp/jack busy?

[PaulNM]

Mark Knecht wrote:

> Hi Paul,
>    Yes, ls -al shown nothing is there.
> 
>    Actually, I think the root cause of this is a little different than
> I expected. /tmp/jack is actually something that's mounted:
> 
> lightning ~ # df
> Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
> <SNIP>
> none                    508016         0    508016   0% /tmp/jack
> 
> and the root cause of that is that it's in my fstab file:
> 
> lightning ~ # cat /etc/fstab | grep jack
> none 			/tmp/jack 	tmpfs 		defaults 	0 0
> lightning ~ #
> 
>    So, there are three directions to go:
> 
> 1) Remove it from fstab and figure out what the repercussions of that
> action might be.

Well, it's a tmpfs, so it gets wiped on shutdown anyway.  Anything that 
needs the /tmp/jack directory will write to there whether a tmpfs is 
mounted or not, so removing the fstab line wont have any consequences by 
itself. If /tmp/jack gets removed by a boot script, and is actually 
needed, the directory will most likely be recreated by whatever program 
  needs it.  If not, you can always "mkdir /tmp/jack" long enough to fix 
the program in question.

> 
> 2) Understand why the Gentoo boot process want to wipe mounted
> directories in /tmp since it won't work.

I suspect the gentoo script is something simple like "if WIPE_TMP=YES, 
then rm /tmp/*".

FHS recommends nothing in /tmp survive boot.
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/2.2/fhs-3.15.html
It's bad practice to have a persistent mount point inside of /tmp or 
/var/tmp.
If your /tmp is a tmpfs of some kind, then the above fstab entry is 
redundant anyway.

The main (possible) problem is some program requires a directory/file to 
exist in /tmp, but doesn't create that directory/file itself.  Thats 
just a plain stupid (programming) practice, so I doubt you'll run into 
any issues with removing the fstab entry, and so on.


> 
> 3) Go back to ignoring it.
> 
>    I'm going to investigate #1 first as this is something that I think
> is left over from years ago, but maybe you or someone else has another
> idea.
> 
> Thanks,
> Mark

PaulNM
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Re: [gentoo-user] Why is /tmp/jack busy?

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:36:40 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:

> 2) Understand why the Gentoo boot process want to wipe mounted
> directories in /tmp since it won't work.

Do you have wipe_tmp="yes" in conf.d/bootmisc? That tells baselayout to
remove everything frmo /tmp instead of only known files. 


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Brain fried -- core dumped.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Why is /tmp/jack busy?

[Mark Knecht]

On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Neil Bothwick <neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 12:36:40 -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
>
>> 2) Understand why the Gentoo boot process want to wipe mounted
>> directories in /tmp since it won't work.
>
> Do you have wipe_tmp="yes" in conf.d/bootmisc? That tells baselayout to
> remove everything frmo /tmp instead of only known files.
>
>
> --
> Neil Bothwick
>
> Brain fried -- core dumped.
>
Thanks Neil. I've changed this option to "no".

What I'm currently running into is that after removing the /tmp/jack
setting in fstab jack itself doesn't run and for some reason flags on
almost all packages are looking messed up. Lots of flags showing up in
red that never did, almost every package showing up as
(~package_number) in eix. Something's gone a bit haywire it seems.

Maybe I'm  seeing a bit of what Grant was asking about yesterday? :-)

I'm making sure that portage and eix are not testing versions and will
try again in a few minutes...

Cheers,
Mark
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