vte use causes /tmp file writing during text scrolling

[Kees Cook]

Binary package hint: terminator

If you open gnome-terminal, and run:

inotifywait -mr /tmp

You can watch files in /tmp. If you cause a terminator window to scroll (ls -la /usr) you'll see many temp files being created and deleted. This doesn't happen with gnome-terminal, and I do not have "infinite scrollback" selected in terminator.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: terminator 0.95-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat May 7 07:18:15 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100406)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: terminator
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-01-11 (115 days ago)

[Kees Cook (kees)]

I take it back, this happens with gnome-terminal too.

[Andrew Pollock (apollock)]

Vaguely related, and probably worthy of a separate bug: if you do have infinite scrolling enabled in Terminator, it'll fill up your /tmp with deleted files that it holds open. Nothing more fun than trying to track down where all your disk space went when du doesn't help.

[Andrew Pollock (apollock)]

http://climagic.org/bugreports/libvte-scrollback-written-to-disk.html

[Kees Cook (kees)]

Here is an insane patch that fixes the problem. I just did a behavioral replacement of file operations with memory operations. This patch could be seriously improved if I could understand the interaction of "offset" and "newpage" better, and just make this a sensible moving window of memory instead. I ran out of time last night, though.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

Hrm, can't link more than one upstream bug, so here:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=631685
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=664611

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package vte - 1:0.28.2-3ubuntu2

---------------
vte (1:0.28.2-3ubuntu2) precise; urgency=low

  * Add debian/patches/backscroll-stream-mem.patch: provide a memory-based
    scrollback stream backend to avoid hitting disk with terminal contents
    (LP: #778872).
 -- Kees Cook <email address hidden> Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:36:14 -0700

[周成瑞 (e93b5ae3)]

Will this patch be applied to upstream Debian and GNOME vte code?

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Launchpad Bug Tracker <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> This bug was fixed in the package vte - 1:0.28.2-3ubuntu2
>
> ---------------
> vte (1:0.28.2-3ubuntu2) precise; urgency=low
>
> * Add debian/patches/backscroll-stream-mem.patch: provide a memory-based
> scrollback stream backend to avoid hitting disk with terminal contents
> (LP: #778872).
> -- Kees Cook <email address hidden> Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:36:14 -0700
>
> ** Changed in: vte (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Fix Released
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/778872
>
> Title:
> vte use causes /tmp file writing during text scrolling
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/vte/+bug/778872/+subscriptions
>

[Jon Dowland (jond)]

Hi, sorry for the noise. I can't see this patch applied to the vte3 package. Should it be? Is there a separate bug to track for that package?

[nh2 (nh2)]

Any update?

[Deomid rojer Ryabkov (rojer9)]

up to date VTE:

$ dpkg -l | grep libvte
ii libvte-2.90-9 1:0.32.1-0ubuntu1 Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 3.0 - runtime files
ii libvte-2.90-common 1:0.32.1-0ubuntu1 Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 3.0 - common files
ii libvte-common 1:0.28.2-3ubuntu2 Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 2.x - common files
ii libvte9 1:0.28.2-3ubuntu2 Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 2.0 - runtime files

but gnome-terminal still has files open in tmp:

$ lsof -p 4528 | grep tmp
gnome-ter 4528 rojer 22u REG 8,1 405615 5636167 /tmp/vteK48ALW (deleted)
gnome-ter 4528 rojer 23u REG 8,1 32000 5636319 /tmp/vte25BKLW (deleted)
gnome-ter 4528 rojer 24u REG 8,1 658384 5636417 /tmp/vteEKABLW (deleted)
gnome-ter 4528 rojer 25u REG 8,1 28752 5636520 /tmp/vteKM0PLW (deleted)
gnome-ter 4528 rojer 26u REG 8,1 7504 5636554 /tmp/vteAGVQLW (deleted)
...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Some interesting relatively recent discussion at LP: #1430620

Although Ubuntu patched vte years ago, vte2.91 was never patched.

[MasterCATZ (mastercatz)]

While looking @ Ubuntu 19.10's system monitor
to find what process just hogged 60 gig of ram I noticed
During the 1 week since last reboot
gnome-terminal-server 30mb Memory, Disk Read Total 40.9Tb, Disk Write Total 1.8Tb