I've been using a simple game server management application on Ubuntu 14.04 for the last 6 months or so. After a recent server update & reboot the application would hang on when trying to start a subprocess. After some debugging it seems that whenever I try to start a subprocess with another user's credentials (I'm running as a root) any command will hang.
Here's a simple application to demonstrate what causes the hang:
package main
import (
"os/exec"
"syscall"
"fmt"
)
func main() {
proc := exec.Command("ls")
proc.SysProcAttr = &syscall.SysProcAttr{}
proc.SysProcAttr.Credential = &syscall.Credential{Uid: 1022, Gid: 1023}
err := proc.Run()
if err != nil {
fmt.Printf("err: %v", err)
}
}
By removing the syscall.Credential part, the application will run without any issues.
My question is: is there some platform/update specific reason that causes this behaviour? Is this no longer a correct way to run a subprocess as another user?
EDIT: Here's the last 5 lines of strace -f
[pid 3994] futex(0xc21000a888, FUTEX_WAKE, 1 <unfinished ...>
[pid 3995] <... futex resumed> ) = 0
[pid 3994] <... futex resumed> ) = 1
[pid 3995] futex(0xc21000a888, FUTEX_WAIT, 0, NULL <unfinished ...>
[pid 3994] select(0, NULL, NULL, NULL, {0, 20}) = 0 (Timeout)
[pid 3994] futex(0x7f615c51a4f8, FUTEX_WAIT, 0, NULL
So apparently if I'm interpreting this right it's blocking at futex_wait.