Bug#306101: apache-ssl: gcache mysteriously gets EOF on /var/run/gcache_port and dies

[Joe Blaylock <blaylock@indiana.edu>]

Package: apache-ssl
Version: 1.3.33-3
Severity: important


Hello.  I'm getting very strange behaviour out of my apache-ssl server.
Without warning, I'm getting lines in /var/log/error.log like this:

EOF in saferead after 0 bytes
gcache: gcachecommon.c:108: ReadThing: Assertion `nRead == sizeof usLength' fail
[Fri Apr 22 11:14:48 2005] [notice] child pid 1588 exit signal Aborted (6)
[Fri Apr 22 11:14:48 2005] [warn] long lost child came home! (pid 1588)
Failed to connect to socket: /var/run/gcache_port
connect: Connection refused
apache-ssl: gcacheclient.c:118: OpenServer: Assertion `!"couldn't connect to socFailed to connect to socket: /var/run/gcache_port
connect: Connection refused

Of course, once the apache-ssl server starts giving the Assertion
errors, it keeps getting them until I intervene.  This means that my SSL
pages are all busted.

I have the following in my /etc/apache-ssl/httpd.conf:
SSLCacheServerPath /usr/lib/apache-ssl/gcache
SSLCacheServerPort /var/run/gcache_port

Looking at gcachecommon.c in the apache-ssl patches for apache, it looks
like the EOF in saferead error is generated by gcache itself, because
it got a return of 0 from it's read() of /var/run/gcache_port.  Then
that makes the ReadThing assert fail, and so gcache bails.

Without gcache running, apache-ssl can't do whatever it's supposed to do
with gcache and so the SSL serving pukes.

I don't know much more than this.  In particular, I have no clue what
could be making gcache get EOF on that file.

Any help that can be given will be greatly appreciated.

    Joe Blaylock

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.29+20050329.00
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages apache-ssl depends on:
ii  apache-common               1.3.33-3     support files for all Apache webse
ii  debconf                     1.4.30.11    Debian configuration management sy
ii  dpkg                        1.10.26      Package maintenance system for Deb
ii  libc6                       2.3.2.ds1-20 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libdb4.2                    4.2.52-18    Berkeley v4.2 Database Libraries [
ii  libexpat1                   1.95.8-1     XML parsing C library - runtime li
ii  libmagic1                   4.12-1       File type determination library us
ii  libssl0.9.7                 0.9.7e-2     SSL shared libraries
ii  logrotate                   3.7-2        Log rotation utility
ii  mime-support                3.28-1       MIME files 'mime.types' & 'mailcap
ii  openssl                     0.9.7e-2     Secure Socket Layer (SSL) binary a
ii  perl                        5.8.4-6      Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  ssl-cert                    1.0-11       Simple debconf wrapper for openssl

-- debconf information:
* apache-ssl/server-admin: kb-root-l@kb-dev.indiana.edu
* apache-ssl/enable-suexec: true
* apache-ssl/init: true
* apache-ssl/server-name: kb-dev.indiana.edu
* apache-ssl/document-root: /home/kb-dev/www