bin/164947: tee looses data when writing to non-blocking file descriptors

[Martin Cracauer]

The following reply was made to PR bin/164947; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Martin Cracauer <cracauer at cons.org>
To: Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr>
Cc: Martin Cracauer <cracauer at cons.org>, freebsd-gnats-submit at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: bin/164947: tee looses data when writing to non-blocking file descriptors
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:16:32 -0500

 Diomidis Spinellis wrote on Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:17:03PM +0200: 
 > On 10/02/2012 23:03, Martin Cracauer wrote:
 > >Diomidis Spinellis wrote on Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:32:02PM +0200:
 > >>On 10/02/2012 21:17, Martin Cracauer wrote:
 > >>>Diomidis Spinellis wrote on Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 07:04:41AM +0000:
 > >>>>
 > >>>>>Number:         164947
 > >>[...]
 > >>
 > >>>>>How-To-Repeat:
 > >>>>Run the following:
 > >>>>#!/usr/local/bin/bash
 > >>>># bash needed for the>(...) functionality
 > >>>># ssh apparently sets O_NONBLOCK
 > >>>># Remove the 2>/dev/null to see tee complaining
 > >>>>dd count=100000 if=/dev/zero |
 > >>>>tee>(ssh localhost dd of=/dev/null) 2>/dev/null |
 > >>>>(ssh localhost dd of=/dev/null)
 > >>>
 > >>>I don't think it is ssh that is causing this. If you use a named pipe
 > >>>explicitly and hook ssh up to that the error doesn't appear.  Seems to
 > >>>be something that bash is doing there.
 > >>
 > >>I think the named pipe isolates the write fd from the ssh end.  If you
 > >>use cat or dd instead of ssh the problem goes away.
 > >
 > >Do you happen to know what bash does there, exactly? I was assuming it
 > >is creating a named pipe behind the user's back.
 > 
 > It is creating a normal pipe and providing it as an argument through 
 > /dev/fd.  Try
 > 
 > ls -l /dev/fd >(wc -l)
 
 Hmmm, this is what I get in ps from this pipe:
 28571  1  T    0:01.56 emacs -nw tee.c.rej
 29598  1  T    0:00.00 cstream -n 10m -i- -v2
 29599  1  T    0:00.00 -bash (bash)
 29600  1  T    0:00.02 ssh localhost dd of=/dev/null
 29603  1  T    0:00.00 tee /tmp/cracauer/sh-np-1328937382
 29609  1  R+   0:00.00 ps
 usr.bin/tee(wings)152% ls -l  /tmp/cracauer/sh-np-1328937382
 prw-------  1 cracauer  wheel  0 Feb 10 16:38 /tmp/cracauer/sh-np-1328937382|
 
 
 
 Either way, I tested your patch, it fixes the problem and it's
 obviously correct (EAGAIN needs to be taken into account) so I'm gonna
 commit it.
 
 > >I noticed that if you do ssh on the "tee part" and something else on
 > >the end of the regular pipe then things also fail.  On the other hand
 > >if you put the "tee part" on something else and the regular pipe on
 > >ssh things never seem to fail.
 > 
 > On 8.1 release I needed both ends to run ssh to see the problem.
 > 
 > 
 > BTW The problem also manifests itself on Mac OS X and Linux :-)
 
 -- 
 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
 Martin Cracauer <cracauer at cons.org>   http://www.cons.org/cracauer/