Bug 73660

Summary:	Ping produces "WARNING: kernel is not very fresh, upgrade is recommended." messages
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Juha Saarinen <juha>
Component:	iputils	Assignee:	Phil Knirsch <pknirsch>
Status:	CLOSED WORKSFORME	QA Contact:	Mike McLean <mikem>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.3	CC:	rvokal
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2003-10-02 09:47:38 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Juha Saarinen 2002-09-08 00:51:54 UTC

Description of Problem:
If you ping a host and get a destination net unreachable ICMP reply, ping 
prints the warning message in the summary field. Is this a valid message 
caused by a kernel bug as the source for ping implies, or just a spurious 
warning that should be removed? PLD has removed it from their version of ping.

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

rpm -q --whatprovides $(which ping)
iputils-20020124-3

Name        : iputils                      Relocations: /usr
Version     : 20020124                          Vendor: Red Hat, Inc.
Release     : 3                             Build Date: Fri 19 Apr 2002
09:40:05 AM NZST
Install date: Fri 24 May 2002 02:33:11 PM NZST      Build Host:
stripples.devel.redhat.com
Group       : System Environment/Daemons    Source RPM:
iputils-20020124-3.src.rpm
Size        : 188776                           License: BSD
Packager    : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla>
Summary     : Network monitoring tools including ping.



How Reproducible:

Very.


Steps to Reproduce:
1. 

pts/2 juha@vim2:~$ ping w.netfirms.com
PING w.netfirms.com (209.171.43.26) from 192.168.1.15 : 56(84) bytes of data.
WARNING: kernel is not very fresh, upgrade is recommended.
From w.netfirms.com (209.171.43.26): icmp_seq=2 Destination Net Unreachable
From w.netfirms.com (209.171.43.26): icmp_seq=3 Destination Net Unreachable
From w.netfirms.com (209.171.43.26): icmp_seq=4 Destination Net Unreachable
From w.netfirms.com (209.171.43.26): icmp_seq=5 Destination Net Unreachable
From w.netfirms.com (209.171.43.26): icmp_seq=6 Destination Net Unreachable


2. 
3. 

Actual Results:


Expected Results:


Additional Information:
tcpdump -v icmp shows:

12:07:01.859472 vim2.saarinen.org > w.netfirms.com: icmp: echo request
(DF) (ttl 64, id 0, len 84)
12:07:02.089333 w.netfirms.com > vim2.saarinen.org: icmp: net
w.netfirms.com unreachable (ttl 47, id 0, len 56)
12:07:02.866957 vim2.saarinen.org > w.netfirms.com: icmp: echo request
(DF) (ttl 64, id 0, len 84)
12:07:03.096793 w.netfirms.com > vim2.saarinen.org: icmp: net
w.netfirms.com unreachable (ttl 47, id 0, len 56)


error_pkt = (icp->type != ICMP_REDIRECT &&
             icp->type != ICMP_SOURCE_QUENCH);
if (error_pkt) {
        acknowledge(icp1->un.echo.sequence);
        if (working_recverr) {
                return 0;
        } else {
                static int once;
                /* Sigh, IP_RECVERR for raw socket
                 * was broken until 2.4.9. So, we ignore
                 * the first error and warn on the second.
                 */
                 if (once++ == 1)
                      fprintf(stderr, "\rWARNING: kernel is not very fresh, 
upgrade is recommended.\n");
                 if (once == 1)
                       return 0;
        }
}

Comment 1 Phil Knirsch 2002-09-25 15:24:06 UTC

Nothing really serious.

Just follow the advice or ignore the message. :-)

Read ya, Phil

Comment 2 Juha Saarinen 2002-09-25 22:26:11 UTC

Well, you can't upgrade the kernel because there ain't no new kernel available 
for 7.3. 

This is what Debian stable does (formatting mangling courtesy of Bugzilla):

--- iputils-20020124.orig/ping.c
+++ iputils-20020124/ping.c
@@ -727,7 +727,7 @@
                                                 * the first error and warn on 
the second.
                                                 */
                                                if (once++ == 1)
-                                                       fprintf
(stderr, "\rWARNING: kernel is not very fresh, upgrade is recommended.\n");
+                                                        fprintf
(stderr, "\rWARNING: kernel is not very fresh, upgrade is recommended.\n");
                                                if (once == 1)
                                                        return 0;
                                        }

Comment 3 Juha Saarinen 2002-09-25 22:30:48 UTC

... and having actually looked at Debian's patch, I am at a loss to explain  
how it would fix the error message ;-). 

-- 
Juha

Comment 4 Phil Knirsch 2003-05-15 15:08:13 UTC

Have you tried kernel-2.4.18-27.7.x lately? I don't see the warning anymore on
our latest releases (RH 8 and RH 9)...

Thanks,

Read ya, Phil

Comment 5 Juha Saarinen 2003-05-15 21:39:53 UTC

Yep...

$ ping w.netfirms.com
PING w.netfirms.com (209.171.43.28) from 192.168.1.15 : 56(84) bytes of data.
WARNING: kernel is not very fresh, upgrade is recommended.

--- w.netfirms.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% loss, time 4050ms

pts/0 juha@vim2:~$ uname -a
Linux vim2 2.4.18-27.7.xcustom #2 Mon May 5 21:08:13 NZST 2003 i686 unknown

$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Linux release 7.3 (Valhalla)

(Still waiting for your press handlers to flick something newer in my general 
direction :-)).

Comment 6 Phil Knirsch 2003-09-03 14:06:26 UTC

Have you given kernel-2.4.20-18.7 a try yet?

/me really wonders...

Read ya, Phil

Comment 7 Phil Knirsch 2003-10-02 09:47:38 UTC

OK, as i haven't been able to reproduce it here anymore with the latest kernels
and glibc i'm closing this bug as worksforme.

Read ya, Phil