Bug 31798

Summary:	needs-restarting outputs only "Failed to read PID nnn's smaps" if not run as root"
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	papoteur <yvesbrungard>
Component:	RPM Packages	Assignee:	All Packagers <pkg-bugs>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	Normal	CC:	fri, lewyssmith, ngompa13
Version:	Cauldron	Keywords:	FOR_ERRATA9
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:	MGA8TOO
Source RPM:	dnf-plugins-core	CVE:
Status comment:

Description papoteur 2023-04-14 16:33:54 CEST

Description of problem:
the command needs-restarting is supposed to say if a reboot is needed. However I obtain only a long list:
...
Failed to read PID 6165's smaps.
Failed to read PID 6937's smaps.
Failed to read PID 8246's smaps.
Failed to read PID 8248's smaps.
Failed to read PID 13493's smaps.
Failed to read PID 13568's smaps.
Failed to read PID 109956's smaps.
Failed to read PID 115331's smaps.
...

Comment 1 Lewis Smith 2023-04-14 20:18:17 CEST

This is a DNF thingy:
needs-restarting - redirecting to DNF needs-restarting Plugin
needs-restarting looks through running processes and tries to de‐
       tect those that use files from packages that  have  been  updated
       after  the  given process started. Such processes are reported by
       this tool.
This is an MGA8 report. MGA9 (perhaps also 8) has for yum-utils:
 dnf-plugins-core-4.3.1-1.mga9.src.rpm
The same thing happens under Mageia 9 when run as *normal user*.
When run as sudo/root, it takes a long time but without those messages.
Could it be as simple as that?

CC: (none) => lewyssmith

Comment 2 papoteur 2023-04-15 09:54:10 CEST

Not sure.
The list is shorter:
[root@YZenbook ~]# needs-restarting
Failed to read PID 625821's smaps.
Failed to read PID 629392's smaps.

Comment 3 Lewis Smith 2023-04-15 20:17:42 CEST

That looks better.
It is reasonable to have to run this 'privilaged', since both doing the system updates and restarting affected processes would normally require this.

I cannot judge whether this is a real bug, or just a usability issue.
Marking for Errata 9 to note it anyway.

No one packager in view, so assigning this globally.

Whiteboard: (none) => MGA8TOO
Source RPM: yum-utils-4.0.9-1 => dnf-plugins-core
Assignee: bugsquad => pkg-bugs
Summary: needs-restarting outputs only Failed to read PID nnn's smaps => needs-restarting outputs only "Failed to read PID nnn's smaps" if not run as root"
Version: 8 => Cauldron
Keywords: (none) => FOR_ERRATA9

Comment 4 papoteur 2023-04-17 11:31:57 CEST

@Neal, do you have an advise?

CC: (none) => ngompa13

Comment 5 Morgan Leijström 2023-06-27 23:12:10 CEST

Still the same?

CC: (none) => fri