Subject: bug#78576: shepherd believes a process is running while it isn't

From: Attila Lendvai <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 May 2025 11:54:17 +0000

this happens on a recently pulled guix. it's been like this for a long time, i'm just only now getting around to finally report it.

in essence:

# herd status | grep bee
 + bee-0
 + bee-1
# herd restart bee-0
herd: error: exception caught while executing 'stop' on service 'bee-0':
In procedure getpgid: No such process
# herd restart bee-0
Service bee-0 is not running.
Service user-homes has been started.
Service bee-0 has been started.

judging from the daemon's own log i think the process simply quits with zero exit code (background info: it happens after some days of running when an external service is temporarily not responding).

the default respawn-limit of the service is not changed.

i don't see anything interesting/relevant in /var/log/messages

IIUC shepherd should be respawning the daemon, even if it quits with zero exit code, right?

--
• attila lendvai
• PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39
--
“Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”
	— George Orwell (1903–1950), 'Politics and the English Language' (1946)