cfengine on OS X: found issue with cf-execd/launchd

[robu...@gmail.com]

hi all,

since a while I'm running cfengine happily also on OS X.

Lately I discovered an issue, I believe, with launchd and cf-execd.

If I keep the systems (various MacBooks) running for a couple of days

with only letting them hibernate (no full reboot) it stops executing cf-agent.

I realized that first by checking the timestamps with cf-key -s on the server vs. timestamps I got from our munki environment (that we use to deploy software)

On the OS X systems there are cf-execd, cf-serverd and cf-monitord processes running (sane, no zombies ;-),

also 'launchctl list' shows that all three daemons are loaded,

but cf-agent isn't executed anymore on it's regular intervall (5 min here).

To fix this,  one has to either reboot the instance or

unload and reload the cf-execd through launchctl.

After that, cf-agent will be executed regular again.

Can anyone confirm this behaviour?

Anyone an idea what creates this hickup? (why does hibernate affects cf-execd but not other services?)

And: before I start hacking something myself that reloads the service after each waking up: Has anyone maybe already a fix for it?

TIA

and best regards

[Stefan Skoglund (lokal användare)]

I saw something like this but in this case it was caused by a mismatch
between time-zone of os (Linux) and hardware which caused a sudden
change in OS time.
That broke cf-hub's pull of info from that machine so the status for
that machine ended up as not ok.

[robu...@gmail.com]

I saw something like this but in this case it was caused by a mismatch
between time-zone of os (Linux) and hardware which caused a sudden
change in OS time.
That broke cf-hub's pull of info from that machine so the status for
that machine ended up as not ok.

thnx Stefan,

no, I don't see that my issue has to do with time or timezones in this case.

(Forgot to report the versions: 

"CFEngine Core 3.7.2" from cfengineers (thnx to you guys by the way ;-)

on "darwin_x86_64_16_4_0")

I solved it for now by creating a script to reload cf-execd and a launchctl file to start that script.

Seems to be okay for now.

bash script:

/usr/local/sbin/restart_cf_execd.sh

-------------------------

#!/bin/bash
#
# cf-execd keeps dreaming after OS X wakes up from hibernation

# here we
# restart cf-execd in case cf-key reports an timestamp not equal to "this" hour.
# In order not to restart cf-execd too often call this script each >5min
# (more precisely >time-interval-of-cf-agent-executions) through launchd
# That results in an "offline" time of cfengine of max: cf-agent-interval+launchd-interval
# If you call this script each 10 min cf-execd will be woken up latest 15 min after system wakeup
#

if [ ! $(cf-key -s | egrep "(Outgoing)" |  egrep "`date "+%a %b +%-d %H"`") ]; then
        /bin/launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.cfengine.cf-execd.plist
        sleep 1
        /bin/launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.cfengine.cf-execd.plist
fi

exit 0

--------------------------

and the simple launchctl file:

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.cfengine.cf-execd-wake-up.plist

--------------------------------------------

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.cfengine.cf-execd-wake-up</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/sbin/restart_cf_execd.sh</string>
    </array>
        <key>StartInterval</key>
        <integer>600</integer>
    <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/dev/null</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/dev/null</string>
  </dict>
</plist>

[mike.w...@verticalsysadmin.com]

Interesting!  May I recommend you open a bug report with CFEngine?  https://tracker.mender.io/secure/CreateIssue!default.jspa

I looked, and I couldn't find any existing bug reports matching this description.

Best,

--Mike Weilgart

Vertical Sysadmin, Inc.

[robu...@gmail.com]

Well, that was why I was looking for confirmation here.

I had the issue on a few MacBooks, but struggling now to reliably reproduce the behavior.

I'll keep an eye on it, and if and when more confident,  report back.

thnx