OverflowError, "long int exceeds XML-RPC limits"

[dino99]

Binary package hint: denyhosts

Lucid B2 updated

got these errors into /var/log/denyhosts

OverflowError, "long int exceeds XML-RPC limits"

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: denyhosts 2.6-6.1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.31-generic-pae 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Apr 16 09:35:56 2010
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=fr_FR.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: denyhosts

[StoatWblr (stoatwblr)]

FWIW, upstream version of denyhosts has been at 2.7 since November 2008. Perhaps a package update is in order?

[Ted (kulinskit)]

The denyhosts author (thanks Phil!) and another person seem to have solved this issue. See http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2898723&group_id=131204&atid=720419 for the details.

I am running Ubuntu 10.04. The following fix from sourceforge blog got it working for me:

1) Edit /var/lib/denyhosts/sync-timestamp, and replace the timestamp with a valid unix timestamp. (I used 1276467300 )

2) At line 55 in /usr/share/denyhosts/DenyHosts/sync.py, I made the following change

from
fp = open(os.path.join(self.__work_dir,
SYNC_TIMESTAMP), "a")

to
fp = open(os.path.join(self.__work_dir,
SYNC_TIMESTAMP), "w")

I take *NO* credit for the fix, but am posting to give something back to the community & hopefully save the next chap some research time fixing this issue.

[dino99 (9d9)]

Thanks Ted, will try your tweaks

[dino99 (9d9)]

Nice , i've received 50 new hosts since #3 changes

[dino99 (9d9)]

i confirm that with #3 change proposed, now denyhosts is working fine, but it'll be nice to use the latest stable package available instead of this oldish into ubuntu repo: please devs upgrade it

[Ted (kulinskit)]

Glad it worked for you!

[Valerio Angelici (valerio-angelici)]

worked for me too! thanks!

[RoyK (roysk)]

is this likely to be changed in a package update?

[RoyK (roysk)]

I just tried this fix, but it didn't help much. I somehow doubt this 'fix' will do much, since the error one should have gotten if there was a problem with opening in append mode would be something completely different than an XML-RPC error.

I've tried tracing the problem, but after some work, I noticed that even though we're getting these error messages, the server does indeed receive updates. It might be a problem where denyhosts are _not_ receiving updates, and probably related to SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY, and then panicing slightly before going on.

I suggest doing a won'tfix on this one, since it's clearly not a critical bug, although it may be good to document it somewhere

roy

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

> I somehow doubt this 'fix' will do much, since the
> error one should have gotten if there was a problem
> with opening in append mode would be something
> completely different than an XML-RPC error.

No -- the error makes sense actually. What happens is something like this:
 - the timestamp file starts out as a valid timestamp (e.g. "1285710078")
 - denyhosts updates it, **appending** to it, yielding a timestamp with twice the normal amount of digits.
   (e.g. "12857100781285710679" in my case)
 - The next time denyhosts sends a request to the server, it asks for all the changes since this gigantic timestamp, and that causes the long int OverflowError described in the initial comment here.

So I think everything makes sense here. I've just applied the suggested workaround to one of my own servers, but I haven't verified whether it's worked yet.

[Daniel Holbert (dholbert)]

(Just to follow up on comment #11 -- the workaround did indeed work for me.)

[Benjamin Schmid (benbuntu)]

Thanks Ted, your feedback helped me alot to pinpoint this isses fast. Expierienced also under Debian squeeze.

[Pablo Englebienne (pablo-englebienne)]

The change suggested by comment #3 resolves this issue. This is still an existing problem today on an up-to-date system running Maverick, so I generated the attached patch hoping that it will be incorporated soon into an update.

[Ben Coleman (b-coleman)]

This problem also exists in Natty. I just installed a new server with Natty, and it has this problem.

[Kaizoku (neoark)]

I still have this problem in oneiric ..

denyhosts --sync
long int exceeds XML-RPC limits
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/denyhosts/DenyHosts/sync.py", line 117, in receive_new_hosts
    self.__prefs.get("SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY"))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py", line 1224, in __call__
    return self.__send(self.__name, args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py", line 1569, in __request
    allow_none=self.__allow_none)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py", line 1085, in dumps
    data = m.dumps(params)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py", line 632, in dumps
    dump(v, write)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py", line 654, in __dump
    f(self, value, write)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xmlrpclib.py", line 680, in dump_long
    raise OverflowError, "long int exceeds XML-RPC limits"
OverflowError: long int exceeds XML-RPC limits

[dusoft (dusoft-staznosti)]

OI confirm, this error occurs in oneiric, 11.10, but the fix mentioned above works! (change from "a" to "w')

[dino99 (9d9)]

As the Debian is marked as "fixed", the ubuntu one should be synced also

[no!chance (ralf-fehlau)]

This error is 2 years old. Why isn't it fixed. I think, precise pangolin should be an LTS release. I think I will install this package from the developers homepage instead of installing it from the ubuntu repositories. :-( is there nobody, who maintains this package?

[dino99 (9d9)]

That package is quite old : latest sourceforge released is from 2008, even if some maintenance is still done

http://sourceforge.net/p/denyhosts/patches/