#5280 Centos6 and webmin 1.920 constantly reports that the server requires a reboot

[Rick Pearson]

The code around whether the server requires a restart on Centos6 (only tested Centos relesase at this stage) is incorrect. The command "needs-restarting" deos NOT accept the "-r" parameter:

[root@centos6test webmin]# needs-restarting -r
Usage:
needs-restarting: Report a list of process ids of programs that started
running before they or some component they use were updated.

needs-restarting: error: no such option: -r
[root@centos6test webmin]#

The package-updates/package-updates-lib.pl @ sub check_reboot_required has the following code:

check_reboot_required(after-flag)

Returns 1 if the package system thinks a reboot is needed

sub check_reboot_required
{
if ($gconfig{'os_type'} eq 'debian-linux') {
return -e "/var/run/reboot-required" ? 1 : 0;
}
elsif ($gconfig{'os_type'} eq 'redhat-linux' &&
&has_command("needs-restarting")) {
my $ex = &execute_command(
"needs-restarting -r", undef, undef, undef, 0, 1);
return $ex ? 1 : 0;
}
return 0;
}

and always returns 1 as the result of the error returns a status of 2.

This will mean that users with Centos6 servers will be unnecessarily restarting their servers.

[Rick Pearson]

Update: Centos7 is correct in that it has the "-r" option for needs-restarting:

[root@centos7test ~]# needs-restarting -h
Usage:
needs-restarting: Report a list of process ids of programs that started
running before they or some component they use were updated.

Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-u, --useronly show processes for my userid only
-r, --reboothint only report whether a full reboot is required (returns 1)
or not (returns 0)
-s, --services list the affected systemd services only
[root@centos7test ~]#

[Rick Pearson]

I believe that the correct code should be:

elsif ($gconfig{'os_type'} eq 'redhat-linux' && $gconfig{'os_version'} >= 15 &&
&has_command("needs-restarting")) {

as Centos6 has os_version as 14 and Centos7 has os_version as 15.

[andrel2]

On Centos 6 no -r option:
needs-restarting -h
Usage:
needs-restarting: Report a list of process ids of programs that started
running before they or some component they use were updated.

Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-u, --useronly show processes for my userid only

[Ilia]

Okay,

It's very sad that the old version of needs-restarting doesn't have explicit switch (-r) to test if restart is needed, while later command version (on CentOS 7) has it. What is worse, that latest command version (on Fedora) again doesn't have -r switch.

Okay, to prevent false positive alerts and still to let this function work, I made a commit and a fix. Give it a try:

https://github.com/webmin/webmin/commit/cbe670e664b6b64f64642b58823460d298f18963

[andrel2]

Tested on CentOS Linux 6.10.
Fixed.
Thanks

[Rick Pearson]

Thanks Ilia. I have tested on Centos6.10 and Centos7 - works fine. Can it be packaged up to V1.921?

[Jamie Cameron]

Yes, this will be included in the 1.921 release.