X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:26:52 -0500 From: Christopher Faylor To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Subject: Re: 1.7.7: rm -rf sometimes fails - race condition? Message-ID: <20101210182652.GA27615@ednor.casa.cgf.cx> Reply-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com References: <4D026815 DOT 4070606 AT gmx DOT de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4D026815.4070606@gmx.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 06:49:09PM +0100, Matthias Andree wrote: >Greetings, > >I see that "rm -rf" on a directory sometimes fails, like here: > >|>>> Creating source package >| fetchmail-6.3.19-1.cygport >| fetchmail-6.3.19-1.cygwin.patch >| fetchmail-6.3.19.tar.bz2 >|>>> Removing work directory in 5 seconds... >|>>> Removing work directory NOW. >| rm: cannot remove `/usr/src/fetchmail-6.3.19-1/inst/usr/share/locale/da': >Directory not empty >| Command exited with non-zero status 1 > >Alternatively, you get "...in use" for an error, however, in this case, it >appears that the corresponding syscall triggered by rm(1) had already returned >but the file wasn't fully removed from the directory yet. > >I've seen this happen for a while now. This happens sporadically, and retrying >the operation usually succeeds, so it matters less in an interactive shell. >However, this often breaks scripts, in this case, cygport. > >This looks like either a premature return from a syscall or libcall, or like a >genuine race in the system. > >In case it matters, this is >- Windows 7 Prof. 32-bit German >- with Sophos Endpoint Security and Control ver. 9 and >- Microsoft Windows Defender. >- coreutils 8.5-2 >- uname -a: > CYGWIN_NT-6.1 somehost 1.7.7(0.230/5/3) 2010-08-31 09:58 i686 Cygwin > > >Has anyone seen similar things? Yes and you seem to have nailed the problem - it happens when a virus checker hooks into a syscall and allows it to return before completion. I don't think we want to modify Cygwin to not trust success return values from system calls. cgf -- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple