Hi, I started up a Tor relay several days ago, and the usage seems to be ramping up nicely. However, I am seeing some unexpected messages like this, in ARM and in the tor log files: 17:21:56 [NOTICE] Failed to terminate process with PID ‘29778' They seem to be showing up, reliably, every 5 minutes or so. Each has a different PID. What’s strange is that these PIDs don’t exist by the time I see the message, i.e. I guess whatever process had that PID is now dead. Anyone know what could be causing this? Should I be concerned, or is this some kind of artifact of my setup or software?
The machine is a modern Gentoo linux install running a 3.10 kernel and Tor 0.2.3.25 (running inside VMWare). Thanks in advance for your help.
Yours, ~ M.
On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 05:49:10PM -0400, Michael Gorbach wrote:
Hi, I started up a Tor relay several days ago, and the usage seems to be ramping up nicely. However, I am seeing some unexpected messages like this, in ARM and in the tor log files: 17:21:56 [NOTICE] Failed to terminate process with PID ?29778'
Did you add any pluggable transports lines to your torrc?
That line sounds like you tried to launch a pluggable transport process (e.g. obfsproxy, flashproxy, etc) but it didn't launch correctly. Perhaps you have some other hints earlier in the logs, like when it boots?
They seem to be showing up, reliably, every 5 minutes or so. Each has a different PID. What?s strange is that these PIDs don?t exist by the time I see the message, i.e. I guess whatever process had that PID is now dead.
I guess that too.
--Roger
Nope, I don’t have any special pluggable transports configured in my torrc, which is odd. What other processes would for be starting kicking off? All I have set in torrc is: RunAsDaemon, CookieAuthentication, SocksPort / SocksPolicy, PortForwarding and ExitPolicy (reject *:*), and DisableDebuggingAttachment.
I do have tor compiled by gentoo’s portage package manager, with the for-hardening, bufferedevents, threads, and nat-pmp flags set.
Yours, ~ M.
On Sep 18, 2013, at 5:57 PM, Roger Dingledine arma@mit.edu wrote:
On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 05:49:10PM -0400, Michael Gorbach wrote:
Hi, I started up a Tor relay several days ago, and the usage seems to be ramping up nicely. However, I am seeing some unexpected messages like this, in ARM and in the tor log files: 17:21:56 [NOTICE] Failed to terminate process with PID ?29778'
Did you add any pluggable transports lines to your torrc?
That line sounds like you tried to launch a pluggable transport process (e.g. obfsproxy, flashproxy, etc) but it didn't launch correctly. Perhaps you have some other hints earlier in the logs, like when it boots?
They seem to be showing up, reliably, every 5 minutes or so. Each has a different PID. What?s strange is that these PIDs don?t exist by the time I see the message, i.e. I guess whatever process had that PID is now dead.
I guess that too.
--Roger
tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 08:20:18PM -0400, Michael Gorbach wrote:
Nope, I don?t have any special pluggable transports configured in my torrc, which is odd. What other processes would for be starting kicking off? All I have set in torrc is [...] PortForwarding
That's likely the one!
You might be one of the first users of this option. Please help us track down what's going on and file a trac ticket about it.
Do you set PortForwardingHelper? If not, I wonder what it's trying to run (and whether it finds it).
I do have tor compiled by gentoo?s portage package manager, with the for-hardening, bufferedevents, threads, and nat-pmp flags set.
You should be aware that bufferevents is experimental, and by experimental in this case I mean "known to not work sometimes and not really a good idea to use unless you're doing it in order to write patches for it". If you want to help your fellow Gentoo users, it sounds like you should file a ticket for gentoo to make it harder to accidentally turn on.
--Roger
Hi Roger, Thanks for your quick responses, I really appreciate it! Yes, thinking about it, this does look like an issue with the port forwarding helper. I’ve filed the following trac issue: https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/9781. I don’t have PortForwardingHelper set in the torrc at all (there must be some default). Regarding bufferevents, this flag is not actually on by default at all. I turned it on manually in portage, not knowing that it was still in testing (perhaps this can be better noted in the Gentoo ebuid’s use flag description). I’ve just recompiled with the flag off, and the relay is back up and running, still showing those “terminate process” messages.
Yours, ~ M.
On Sep 18, 2013, at 10:51 PM, Roger Dingledine arma@mit.edu wrote:
On Wed, Sep 18, 2013 at 08:20:18PM -0400, Michael Gorbach wrote:
Nope, I don?t have any special pluggable transports configured in my torrc, which is odd. What other processes would for be starting kicking off? All I have set in torrc is [...] PortForwarding
That's likely the one!
You might be one of the first users of this option. Please help us track down what's going on and file a trac ticket about it.
Do you set PortForwardingHelper? If not, I wonder what it's trying to run (and whether it finds it).
I do have tor compiled by gentoo?s portage package manager, with the for-hardening, bufferedevents, threads, and nat-pmp flags set.
You should be aware that bufferevents is experimental, and by experimental in this case I mean "known to not work sometimes and not really a good idea to use unless you're doing it in order to write patches for it". If you want to help your fellow Gentoo users, it sounds like you should file a ticket for gentoo to make it harder to accidentally turn on.
--Roger
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