** Description changed: [Impact] - * The service for vmware base kernel mode setting fails sometimes (racy) - to work after boot, but suceeds when restarted. The reason is that - loading the required module is not always done in time. + * The service for vmware base kernel mode setting fails sometimes (racy) + to work after boot, but suceeds when restarted. The reason is that + loading the required module is not always done in time. - * This is fixed by a drop-in snippet extending open-vm-tools.service. - (Not modifying the base .service file as the service and the - drop in are owned by different packages). - This drop in makes the service ensuring the load of the module in the - ExecStartPre phase + * This is fixed by a drop-in snippet extending open-vm-tools.service. + (Not modifying the base .service file as the service and the + drop in are owned by different packages). + This drop in makes the service ensuring the load of the module in the + ExecStartPre phase - * Backport the change [1] as part of the regular backport we do - for the latest Ubuntu LTS - + * Backport the change [1] as part of the regular backport we do + for the latest Ubuntu LTS + [Test Case] - * Due to the racy nature of this issue there isn't a great 100% - reliable test. But we can do something to at least try based on - retries. + * Due to the racy nature of this issue there isn't a great 100% + reliable test. But we can do something to at least try based on + retries. - * install a VMware guest with e.g. Ubuntu Desktop and install - open-vm-tools-desktop - * Put that guest into a reboot loop for a while, but wait until Desktop - is fully up before that - * Checking resulution sucks (manual on each reboot) but without the fix - chances are (due to the race only chances) that the log contains the - error triggering, see /var/log/vmware-vmsvc.log - It will have: - [ warning] [resolutionCommon] resolutionCheckForKMS: No system - support for resolutionKMS. - While with the fix it should always work which looks like: - [ message] [resolutionCommon] resolutionCheckForKMS: System - support available for resolutionKMS. - [ message] [vmtoolsd] Plugin 'resolutionKMS' initialized. + * install a VMware guest with e.g. Ubuntu Desktop and install + open-vm-tools-desktop + * Put that guest into a reboot loop for a while, but wait until Desktop + is fully up before that + * Checking resulution sucks (manual on each reboot) but without the fix + chances are (due to the race only chances) that the log contains the + error triggering, see /var/log/vmware-vmsvc.log + It will have: + [ warning] [resolutionCommon] resolutionCheckForKMS: No system + support for resolutionKMS. + While with the fix it should always work which looks like: + [ message] [resolutionCommon] resolutionCheckForKMS: System + support available for resolutionKMS. + [ message] [vmtoolsd] Plugin 'resolutionKMS' initialized. + + * For a somewhat faked test you could drop a file that prevents the + module from loading e.g. + $ echo "blacklist vmwgfx" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-vmware.conf + $ echo "install vmwgfx /bin/false" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-vmware.conf + $ sudo update-initramfs -u -k all + Then reboot which will make it start without the module and trigger the + error condition as if it would have raced (service up but the module + not loaded). + On a service restart you'll see the error: + [2019-03-04T08:17:34.112Z] [ message] [resolutionCommon] + resolutionCheckForKMS: dlopen succeeded. + [2019-03-04T08:17:34.268Z] [ warning] [resolutionCommon] + resolutionCheckForKMS: No system support for resolutionKMS. + Even if you now remove the blacklist it will still fail that way. + If you modprobe vmwgfx it will switch to + [2019-03-04T08:18:42.983Z] [ message] [resolutionCommon] + resolutionCheckForKMS: dlopen succeeded. + [2019-03-04T08:18:42.986Z] [ message] [resolutionCommon] + resolutionCheckForKMS: System support available for resolutionKMS. + The latter should work without manual modprobe and with the fix it + does. + [Regression Potential] - * I wondered first if a regression could be that for some users - this always failed and due to that now after the change they get - e.g. different guest resolution. But the race seems unable to be - reliable either way, so those users would today be flaky with/without - KMS working and the fix would make that reliable. Therefore that is - no regression but an actual fix for those users. + * I wondered first if a regression could be that for some users + this always failed and due to that now after the change they get + e.g. different guest resolution. But the race seems unable to be + reliable either way, so those users would today be flaky with/without + KMS working and the fix would make that reliable. Therefore that is + no regression but an actual fix for those users. - * Also failing to load the module is not a (regressing) problem. - In our kernel packaging that module is only part of the -oem, - -lowlatency and all modules-extra-... packages. That said there - can be cases where e.g. running the virt kernels the modules isn't - available. But that will not make the service fail as it is using - the prefix "-" which means that if failing it still goes on to - start the service itself [2]. - + * Also failing to load the module is not a (regressing) problem. + In our kernel packaging that module is only part of the -oem, + -lowlatency and all modules-extra-... packages. That said there + can be cases where e.g. running the virt kernels the modules isn't + available. But that will not make the service fail as it is using + the prefix "-" which means that if failing it still goes on to + start the service itself [2]. [Other Info] - * n/a + * n/a [1]: https://github.com/bzed/pkg-open-vm-tools/commit/db2a3642d45 [2]: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.service.html - --- This is about the tracking of a bug that was reported and fixed in Debian (and thereby also Ubuntu 19.04 already) to also SRU that back as part of our open-vm-tools backports to latest LTS. Related: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=915031 https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/issues/214 https://github.com/bzed/pkg-open-vm-tools/pull/13
-- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1818473 Title: open-vm-tools-desktop: resolutionKMS plugins sometimes fails to load at boot To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/open-vm-tools/+bug/1818473/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
