"killall -u snmp" in a pre-install step kills any running snmpd

[Eamon Bisson-DOnahue]

If I am running snmpd (which I was) and I install snmp (which I did), it kills snmpd due to a pre-install step of the snmp package that calls a 'killall -u snmp' :(

Found the pre-install step here:

user@host3:~$ cat /var/lib/dpkg/info/snmp.preinst
#! /bin/sh

set -e

action="$1"

killall -u snmp 2>/dev/null || true

if [ "$action" = upgrade ]
then
  if [ -L /usr/share/doc/snmp ]; then
    rm -f /usr/share/doc/snmp
  fi
  if [ -d /usr/doc/snmp ]; then
    rm -rf /usr/doc/snmp
  fi
fi

exit 0

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[ChristianEhrhardt (paelzer)]

snmp and snmpd are part of one source being: net-snmp

I could confirm that this still affects wily/upstream

The killall was introduced way back by
  * debian/snmp.preinst, debian/snmp.prerm: kill any/all processes owned by
    snmp user before install/uninstall, LP: #573391
 -- Dustin Kirkland <email address hidden> Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:04:48 -0500

Gimmick: killall is psmisc which is not a dependency of snmp - if we keep the killall we would have to add this dependency

The killall is done with "-u snmp" but no binary is given, so it kills everything of that user.
The reason for that was, that certain scripts would call deluser which fails as long as a user is logged in.

There would be complex solutions like storing&restoring the service state.
But it turns out that the original motivation why the killall was added is gone.
These days the install scripts no more call deluser (only snmpd.postrm).

So we can just remove the killall introduced by LP: #573391 to fix LP: #1245604

At the same time I submitted an equivalent fix to debian to fix it as well and one day be able to drop the diff.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

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[Robie Basak (racb)]

Uploaded, thanks!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package net-snmp - 5.7.3+dfsg-1ubuntu2

---------------
net-snmp (5.7.3+dfsg-1ubuntu2) wily; urgency=medium

  * debian/snmp.preinst:
    It turns out that the original motivation why killall was added is gone.
    So we can just remove the killall introduced by Ubuntu LP #573391
    (Closes: #781257, LP: #1245604)

 -- Christian Ehrhardt <email address hidden> Fri, 09 Oct 2015 13:18:25 +0200