Bug#45848: when network is down, most programs block talking to nscd

[Brian Ristuccia <brianr@osiris.978.org>]

Package: nscd
Version: 2.1.2-2

When the network connection goes down, most programs block when talking to
nscd. This includes login, su, ls -l, ps, etc., so it's virtually impossible
to diagnose the problem. Here's a strace snippet:

socket(PF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0)         = 3
connect(3, {sun_family=AF_UNIX, sun_path="/var/run/.nscd_socket"}, 110) = 0
write(3, "\2\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\5\0\0\0", 12) = 12
write(3, "1000\0", 5)                   = 5
read(3,  <unfinished ...>

This basicly renders the entire system hosed unless you have an open root
shell and know the pid of nscd. I'm not even sure if a clean shutdown will
be possible.

-- 
Brian Ristuccia
brianr@osiris.978.org
bristucc@nortelnetworks.com
bristucc@cs.uml.edu