Bug 653054 - tcsh forgets history
Summary: tcsh forgets history
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NEXTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: tcsh
Version: 17
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
low
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Roman Kollár
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2010-11-14 09:50 UTC by Arne Woerner
Modified: 2013-01-21 16:37 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-01-21 16:37:53 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
solution that needs an additional lock file (2.34 KB, patch)
2011-10-26 11:19 UTC, Arne Woerner
no flags Details | Diff
fcntl .history file locking - shared readers, exclusive writer (12.77 KB, patch)
2012-02-16 14:03 UTC, Vojtech Vitek
no flags Details | Diff


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Bugzilla 658074 1 None None None 2021-01-20 06:05:38 UTC

Internal Links: 658074

Description Arne Woerner 2010-11-14 09:50:15 UTC
Description of problem:
tcsh often empties its ~/.history file...

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
> tcsh --version
tcsh --version
tcsh 6.17.00 (Astron) 2009-07-10 (x86_64-unknown-linux) options wide,nls,dl,al,kan,rh,color,filec

How reproducible:
sporadic (once a day) - i dont know why...
settings:
> set | grep hist
histdup	erase
history	1000
savehist	(1000 merge)

Steps to Reproduce:
1. start csh and tcsh via gnome-terminal and crontab
  
Actual results:
after some time (funnily about at 09:00UTC the 2nd time) the ~/.history file has 0 bytes length...

Expected results:
the ~/.history file should keep the last 1000 unique commands "in mind"... :-)

Additional info:
maybe there is insufficient locking, when 2 tcsh sessions end the same time?

Comment 3 Arne Woerner 2010-11-15 17:36:35 UTC
i just had a look at the tcsh src code and found that the authors r aware of this bug (they suggest to do certain things (open, create, dump) atomically)...

a fix seems to be complicated (e g dosource() doesnt allow a "do it atomically" parameter)... :-)

i wasnt aware of that RHEL-5 bug report... maybe i should have waited just some years longer (that bug is very ooooold)... :-)) sorry for the trouble...

-arne

Comment 4 Ondrej Vasik 2010-11-15 20:34:21 UTC
As you said - to do that atomically is not so easy - and authors are aware of the issue. Vojta is new tcsh maintainer and he is now trying to make a patch and propose it to upstream (independently on this report) ... so hopefully it's not a matter of years...

Comment 5 Vojtech Vitek 2010-11-16 10:18:58 UTC
Hopefully not :)

Comment 6 Arne Woerner 2010-12-20 11:36:48 UTC
i made a workaround: (a little blunt *blush* but it works)

> grep histfile .cshrc
set histfile=`/usr/local/bin/csh-hist-workaround.sh $$`
> cat devel/chw/csh-hist-workaround.sh 
#!/bin/sh
# $Id$

cd /tmp
lockfile history.lock
touch history.fst
ls -tr history.[1-9]*.?????????? 2> /dev/null | \
while read f ; do
	pid=`echo $f | sed -e 's:^history\.::' -e 's:\..*::'`
	if pgrep tcsh | fgrep -q $pid ; then
		continue
	fi
	if [ -f history.fst ] ; then
		rm history.fst
		mv $f history
	else
		cat $f >> history
		rm $f
	fi
done
fn=`mktemp /tmp/history.$1.XXXXXXXXXX`
if [ -f history ] ; then
	cp history $fn
fi
rm -f history.fst
rm -f history.lock
echo -n $fn
> 

-arne

Comment 7 Arne Woerner 2010-12-20 13:27:15 UTC
it should be
grep -q ^$pid'$'
instead of
fgrep -q $pid

-arne

Comment 8 Arne Woerner 2010-12-26 21:43:40 UTC
here is an update of the workaround (its disk complexity is slightly better):
lockfile /tmp/history.lock
set histfile=`mktemp /tmp/history.$$.XXXXXXXXXX`
set history=2000
set histdup=erase
set savehist=(2000 merge)
test -f /tmp/history && history -L /tmp/history
foreach f ( `ls -tr /tmp/history.[1-9]*.??????????` ) >& /dev/null
   history -M $f
   history -S /tmp/history
   test -e /proc/`echo $f | sed -e 's:^/tmp/history\.::' -e 's:\..*::'` || rm -f $f
end
rm -f /tmp/history.lock

-arne

Comment 9 Arne Woerner 2011-01-26 16:41:41 UTC
i found a further optimization:
lockfile -1 /tmp/history.lock
set history=2000
set histdup=erase
set savehist=(2000 merge)
test -f /tmp/history && history -L /tmp/history
set hsn=""
foreach f ( `ls -tr /tmp/history.[1-9]*.??????????` ) >& /dev/null
   test -e /proc/`echo $f|sed -e 's:^/tmp/history\.::' -e 's:\..*::'` && continue
   history -M $f
   rm -f $f
   set hsn=1
end
set histfile=`mktemp /tmp/history.$$.XXXXXXXXXX`
test -z "$hsn" || history -S /tmp/history
rm -f /tmp/history.lock

-arne

Comment 10 Vojtech Vitek 2011-09-08 14:39:06 UTC
Arne, thank you for your help. Unfortunately, we can't use such workarounds as a final solution.

Comment 11 Arne Woerner 2011-10-26 11:19:46 UTC
Created attachment 530274 [details]
solution that needs an additional lock file

i found a new workaround...
it uses an additional lockfile, because: dosource (or so) seems to drop the lock to the history file...

Comment 12 Vojtech Vitek 2012-02-16 14:03:04 UTC
Created attachment 562503 [details]
fcntl .history file locking - shared readers, exclusive writer

Comment 13 Arne Woerner 2012-02-16 19:47:43 UTC
congratulations!
looks like a voluminous fix... :-)
but it is more elegant with a lock on the history file...
(i mean: an extra file (like in my workaround) is quite clumsy...)

-arne

Comment 14 Vojtech Vitek 2012-02-20 14:31:24 UTC
Fixed in Rawhide. Builds for stable Fedora releases coming probably with few other fixes..

Comment 15 Vojtech Vitek 2012-02-20 14:33:03 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> congratulations!
> looks like a voluminous fix... :-)
> but it is more elegant with a lock on the history file...
> (i mean: an extra file (like in my workaround) is quite clumsy...)

Thanks Arne! And thank you again for your help, I really appreciated that.

Comment 16 Arne Woerner 2012-04-19 17:57:32 UTC
oops
it still happens that the .history file is empty...
i think it happens when the X session is killed (e. g. with ctrl+alt+backspace)...

is it possible, that tcsh doesnt ignore signals during saving history?
or does it get a SIGKILL (which cant be ignored IIRC) (but why does it delete the history file then)?

currently i use tcsh.x86_64 (6.17-18.fc17)...

Comment 17 Vojtech Vitek 2012-05-14 21:59:27 UTC
Arne, I'm going to release new tcsh Fedora builds with the latest .history file locking changes that came from the RHEL-6 QA/testing phase. Stay tunned for the new builds - I'd be happy to hear your feedback then again.

Comment 18 Arne Woerner 2012-05-22 10:40:18 UTC
oh - ok - i thought the fix would be part of fc17 already... :-) -arne

Comment 19 Arne Woerner 2012-09-03 06:49:12 UTC
is it fixed in tcsh.x86_64 6.17-18.fc17?
i lost my history file again...

Comment 20 Arne Woerner 2013-01-20 07:36:22 UTC
did the patch reach fc18?
or what does "status: MODIFIED" mean?

i had to switch to bash, because: tcsh continued to destroy my .history file...

Comment 21 Ondrej Vasik 2013-01-20 13:58:15 UTC
Vojtech no longer maintains the package, I moved it to current maintainer.

Comment 22 Roman Kollár 2013-01-21 16:37:53 UTC
Hi, the patch made by Vojtech is not in f17, only in f18.


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