[Users] Problems with Debian sid VE

Marcin Owsiany marcin at owsiany.pl
Thu Apr 17 16:54:46 EDT 2008


On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 12:41:41PM -0600, Roberto Mello wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Marcin Owsiany <marcin at owsiany.pl> wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 08:59:00AM -0600, Roberto Mello wrote:
> >  > I created a Debian Unstable (sid) VE through debootstratp, and I'm
> >  > thinking I forgot something because I get some weird behavior out of
> >  > that VE when I first start it:
> >  >
> >  > 1) I get a message "Mount failed for selinuxfs on /selinux".
> >  >
> >  > I've grepped everything I could and can't find references to selinux
> >
> >  I think openvz and selinux are mutually exclusive.
> 
> I am aware of that. The Hardware Node has no SELinux enabled.

However it's clearly enabled in userspace in the VE, as it tries to
mount /selinux. Possibly the UID problems are related to that.

> >  > 2) When I `vzctl enter <vpsid>` the root user comes out as "I have no name!"
> >
> >  Can you paste what exactly happens?
> 
> foo-HN# vzctl start 115
> <openVZ startup messages>
> Mount failed for selinuxfs on /selinux
> foo-HN# vzctl enter 115
> I Have no name!@ve115#

Funny, I've never seen that happen before. No wonder I didn't know what
you meant. Looks like "I have no name!" is the username set in bash,
when getpwuid() (which scans /etc/passwd) fails.

> >  > 3) I get a SIGSEV if I try to run aptitude
> >
> >  Perhaps it's just bad OOM handling. Try stracing it?
> 
> No. It's definitely related to the problem that happens with this VE
> with Debian Sid in the first few minutes after starting it. After a
> few minutes aptitude is able to start up and run just fine.

I still think that this SIGSEGV is just aptitude failing to handle an
"impossible" situation correctly.

> Anyone have a clue what's going on here?

My gut feeling is that selinux is to blame. I would try to disable
selinux in the VE.

As one of my colleagues say "If weird shit happens, check selinux."
Root not being able to read /etc/passwd is a fine example of "weird
shit" :)

-- 
Marcin Owsiany <marcin at owsiany.pl>              http://marcin.owsiany.pl/
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