Re: PROBLEM: blocking read on socket repeatedly returns EAGAIN

From: Kern Sibbald
Date: Tue Aug 16 2005 - 09:19:47 EST


On Tuesday 16 August 2005 16:03, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Maw, 2005-08-16 at 15:19 +0200, Kern Sibbald wrote:
> > have written, nor does it write() anything. When my read() is issued, I
> > expect it to block, but it immediately returns with -1 and errno set to
> > EAGAIN. If the read() is re-issued, a CPU intensive loop results as long
> > as the other end does not read() the data written to the socket. This is
> > a multi-threaded program, but the other threads are all blocked on
> > something.
>
> You are describing behaviour as expected with nonblocking set. That
> suggests to me that something or someone set or inherited the nonblock
> flag on that socket.

I verified that I have not explicitly set nonblocking on the socket, so expect
it to be default blocking.

> Is the strange behaviour specific to the latest kernel ?

This behavior, manifesting itself as a CPU loop, has been plaguing me for a
number of months now. It is not specific to the latest kernel since it
happened on FC3 and all kernels between. Before FC3 I was on RHEL3 (2.4
kernel) but am unsure if I saw the problem there, my best guess is that it is
2.6 related, but I cannot guarantee that.

I have a workaround for the problem (sleep 200ms), but can repeat it and will
be happy to provide more info as you request.

The only thing I would correct in what I initially wrote is I believe that the
other end of the socket did read some of the data I wrote before I did my
read() expecting it to block.


Kern
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