Bug 1879868

Summary: "sysctl -a" returning binary junk for sunprc.transports key
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Luke Bigum <luke.bigum>
Component: procps-ngAssignee: Jan Rybar <jrybar>
Status: CLOSED EOL QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 33CC: ablanco, jaromir.capik, jrybar, kdudka, markus.linnala, me
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OS: Linux   
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Last Closed: 2021-11-30 16:33:58 UTC Type: Bug
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Description Luke Bigum 2020-09-17 08:57:28 UTC
Description of problem:

Output of `sysctl -a` returns binary junk data for "sunrpc.transports" key.  The contents returned is not static, it changes every time.  It could be an issue with the sunrpc kernel module.

If you request the value of the key directly, it is empty.  If you `cat /proc/sys/sunrpc/transports` it is also empty.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

Affects both Fedora 31 or 32.  Fedora 30 does not have this problem.

How reproducible:

Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. sysctl -a


Actual results:

# sysctl -a
...
sunrpc.transports = 0��$`
# sysctl -a
...
sunrpc.transports = 0AV��
# sysctl -a
...
sunrpc.transports = 0�՗


Expected results:

An ASCII parseable string as a result.


Additional info:

Noticed because some of our management tools (Puppet) are calling `sysctl -a` and parsing the output, seeing the binary data and trying to convert it from UTF-8, and failing.

Comment 1 Markus Linnala 2020-10-02 10:16:57 UTC
I see this in F32.

procps-ng-3.3.16-1.fc32.x86_64
kernel 5.8.12-200.fc32.x86_64

To mitigate Puppet problem, you can hotpatch: augeasproviders_sysctl/lib/puppet/provider/sysctl/augeas.rb

After:
    sysctl('-a').each_line do |line|
Add:
      line = line.force_encoding("US-ASCII").scrub("")

Comment 2 Markus Linnala 2020-10-17 19:14:42 UTC
I see this also in F33

procps-ng-3.3.16-1.fc33.x86_64
kernel-5.8.15-301.fc33.x86_64

Comment 3 Ben Cotton 2020-11-03 17:16:48 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 31 is nearing its end of life.
Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 31 on 2020-11-24.
It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a
Fedora 'version' of '31'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 31 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 4 Ben Cotton 2021-11-04 17:23:26 UTC
This message is a reminder that Fedora 33 is nearing its end of life.
Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 33 on 2021-11-30.
It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with a
Fedora 'version' of '33'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 33 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

Comment 5 Ben Cotton 2021-11-30 16:33:58 UTC
Fedora 33 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2021-11-30. Fedora 33 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.