[Libguestfs] [PATCH 1/2] tests/mount-local: exit child immediately when exec fails

[Laszlo Ersek]

Each worker thread of "test-parallel-mount-local" performs the following
steps (among others):

(1) it starts an appliance dedicated to that thread, using a private
    scratch disk image,

(2) exports a dedicated FUSE mount point on the host, exposing the file
    system on the appliance's disk,

(3) launches a child process for manipulating the particular FUSE mount
    point on the host,

(4) enters a FUSE request processing loop, translating requests between
    the host kernel (coming in via the FUSE mount point) and the
    appliance.

Items to note:

- The child process from step (3) consists of a single thread of execution
  (see fork() in POSIX): a duplicate of the parent process's respective
  worker thread.

- The child process from step (3) blocks on any FUSE mount point access on
  the host until the worker thread in the parent process starts processing
  FUSE requests, in step (4).

- The FUSE request processing in step (4), in the worker thread living in
  the parent process, terminates if and only if the child process unmounts
  the FUSE mount point originating from (2).

Should the exec call in step (3) fail for any reason, the child currently
jumps to the "error" label. This is wrong: under the error label, we call
guestfs_close() on the appliance -- but the appliance is owned by the
parent process's worker thread, not the child. What happens is that the
child kills off the appliance while the parent's worker thread is in the
FUSE request processing loop (4).

The "error" label was never meant to be reached by the child process -- if
exec fails for any reason, exit the child immediately. The parent will
remain in the FUSE request processing loop (4) forever, but no state will
be corrupted. For example, using another (interactive) session on the
host, the FUSE mount points can be interacted with, and if all of them are
manually unmounted, the FUSE request processing (4) completes in every
worker thread.

This patch does not fix the primary issue with
"test-parallel-mount-local", but removes "chaos" from the symptoms. The
next patch will fix the actual regression in this test case.

Signed-off-by: Laszlo Ersek <lersek at redhat.com>
---
 tests/mount-local/test-parallel-mount-local.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/tests/mount-local/test-parallel-mount-local.c b/tests/mount-local/test-parallel-mount-local.c
index d3db6914fc4c..5f00e328a39c 100644
--- a/tests/mount-local/test-parallel-mount-local.c
+++ b/tests/mount-local/test-parallel-mount-local.c
@@ -223,7 +223,7 @@ start_thread (void *statevp)
       execlp ("./test-parallel-mount-local",
               "test-parallel-mount-local", "--test", state->mp, NULL);
       perror ("execlp");
-      goto error;
+      _exit (EXIT_FAILURE);
     }
 
     /* Run the FUSE main loop.  We don't really want to see libguestfs
-- 
2.19.1.3.g30247aa5d201