Re: [Fetchmail-users] Fetchmail logrotate script works once then fails next run

[Chris <cpo...@em...>]

On Sun, 2017-02-12 at 11:03 -0600, Chris wrote:
> On Sun, 2017-02-12 at 16:25 +0100, Matthias Andree wrote:
> > 
> > Am 12.02.2017 um 15:56 schrieb Chris:
> > > 
> > > 
> > >         postrotate
> > >         /usr/local/bin/fetchmail --quit
> > >         /usr/local/bin/fetchmail -v --nokeep --nosyslog --logfile
> > > /home/chris/fetchmaillog --uidl -m procmail
> > >         endscript
> > > [...]
> > > running postrotate script
> > > fetchmail: background fetchmail at 3786 killed.
> > > fetchmail: can't accept options while a background fetchmail is
> > > running.
> > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > I don't understand why it worked the first time but not the 2nd
> > > as
> > > nothing was changed in between.
> > 
> > Hi Chris,
> > 
> > Looks like a race between the three instances of fetchmail
> > involved:
> > 
> > 1. you have 3786
> > 2. postrotate starts fetchmail -q, which just signals 3786 to exit,
> > but
> > does not wait for its exit (because it's not its child that
> > wouldn't
> > be
> > 100% safe anyhow)
> > 3. postrotate immediately starts a new fetchmail, which stumbles
> > over
> > the still existing instance that's still cleaning up.
> > 
> > It'd probably be good to wait until the prior instance has really
> > quit
> > before starting the next one, like so (adjust the pid file's path):
> > 
> > /usr/local/bin/fetchmail --quit
> > 
> > while [ -e /path/to/fetchmail.pid ] ; do sleep 1 ; done
> > 
> > /usr/local/bin/fetchmail -v --nokeep --nosyslog --logfile
> > /home/chris/fetchmaillog --uidl -m procmail
> > 
> > 
> > and possibly adding a counter so it does not wait too long or
> > otherwise
> > use SIGKILL to get rid of the old instance.
> > 
> > Neither will be 100% bullet-proof unless you defer to a service
> > supervisor such as runit, upstart, systemd, or thereabouts, and
> > just
> > request a fetchmail restart from such a supervisor in your
> > postrotate
> > script.
> > 
> > HTH
> > Matthias
> > 
> Thanks Matthias, I'm sure it will. I'll make the changes and give it
> some test runs until I get it right. Appreciate the assistance.
> 
Adding that one line to the script got it to run perfectly Matthias,
thanks so much for the help

Chris

-- 
Chris
KeyID 0xE372A7DA98E6705C
31.11972; -97.90167 (Elev. 1092 ft)
07:43:27 up 12 days, 23:41, 2 users, load average: 2.88, 1.87, 1.11
Description:	Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS, kernel 4.4.0-62-generic