webfaction: Internal Server Error after upgrade to 1.96.2

[Pepe Araya]

Hi, my site have an "internal server error" after upgrade to 1.96.2

Webfaction support say:

Your app is trying to wrote to /dev/urandom which it will never be able to do:

[pepearaya@web136 apache2]$ tail /home/pepearaya/logs/user/error_crewcatalyst.log
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] from globals import current
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst/web2py/gluon/globals.py", line 21, in <module>
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] from html import xmlescape, TABLE, TR, PRE
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst/web2py/gluon/html.py", line 29, in <module>
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] from utils import web2py_uuid, hmac_hash
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst/web2py/gluon/utils.py", line 98, in <module>
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] ctokens = initialize_urandom()
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst/web2py/gluon/utils.py", line 90, in initialize_urandom
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] open('/dev/urandom','wb').write(''.join(chr(t) for t in ctokens))
[Sat Jun 04 01:34:25 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/dev/urandom'

So, you need to change that line to: "open('/dev/urandom','r').write(''.join(chr(t) for t in ctokens))"

after that change I get this error:

open('/dev/urandom','r').write(''.join(chr(t) for t in ctokens))

[Sat Jun 04 02:12:33 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] IOError: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor

any idea of what i can to do?

thanks!

[Pepe Araya]

Reply 2:

> open('/dev/urandom','r').write(''.join(chr(t) for t in ctokens))

In this line, you are attempting to open /dev/urandom for reading, and then are attempting to write to it.

Instead, you need to read the data from /dev/urandom, and then open a new file for writing to write your output.

Hope that helps!

______

what can i do?

[Massimo Di Pierro]

I am releasing 1.96.3 in a minute to fix this.

Massimo

[ron_m]

On my Ubuntu 10.04 system /dev/urandom has mode 666 which means read and write for everyone. If it is not writeable on Webfaction for others then it is either a policy for a different Linux distribution or a policy of Webfaction.

The idea behind writing to /dev/urandom is to seed the random number generator so the output read from the generator is less likely to be guessed which increases security.

[ron_m]

To add some more, on Ubuntu and according to man urandom all major Linux distributions since 2000 the file /etc/init.d/urandom saves the random number pool into a seed file and restores it on startup by writing it back to /dev/urandom.

[Pepe Araya]

Thanks Massimo!

I'll give a try

[Pepe Araya]

Massimo, bad news :( it not work

this is the log:

[Sat Jun 04 17:41:31 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]   File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst/web2py/gluon/html.py", line 29, in <module>

[Sat Jun 04 17:41:31 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]     from utils import web2py_uuid, hmac_hash

[Sat Jun 04 17:41:31 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]   File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst/web2py/gluon/utils.py", line 98, in <module>

[Sat Jun 04 17:41:31 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]     ctokens = initialize_urandom()

[Sat Jun 04 17:41:31 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]   File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst/web2py/gluon/utils.py", line 90, in initialize_urandom

[Sat Jun 04 17:41:31 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]     open('/dev/urandom','wb').write(''.join(chr(t) for t in ctokens))

[Sat Jun 04 17:41:31 2011] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/dev/urandom'

[Massimo Di Pierro]

can you check the new trunk? If ok, I will post 1.96.4

[Pepe Araya]

Massimo, I did a fresh install with the new trunk and this is the traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "web2py.py", line 16, in <module>

    import gluon.widget

  File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst2/web2py/gluon/__init__.py", line 15, in <module>

    from globals import current

  File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst2/web2py/gluon/globals.py", line 21, in <module>

    from html import xmlescape, TABLE, TR, PRE

  File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst2/web2py/gluon/html.py", line 29, in <module>

    from utils import web2py_uuid, hmac_hash

  File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst2/web2py/gluon/utils.py", line 103, in <module>

    ctokens = initialize_urandom()

  File "/home/pepearaya/webapps/crewcatalyst2/web2py/gluon/utils.py", line 93, in initialize_urandom

    except IOerror:

NameError: global name 'IOerror' is not defined

[Pepe Araya]

Quoting Jonathan Lundell:

It should be IOError (capital E)

---

with that change it works.