Ubuntu
tracker package

msword_filter should check available disk space before copying files to /tmp

Bug #230876 reported by matze_
2
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
tracker (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: tracker

After unmounting a large truecrypt volume (file called test.doc) tracker starts msword_filter which copies the file to /tmp.
The problem is, test.doc is a truecrypt volume of 20GB, and there are only 6GB free on /tmp.

After doing 'truecrqpt -d', here are relevant lines from 'ps -ef':
matze 9180 1 0 19:51 ? 00:00:10 /usr/bin/trackerd
matze 15514 9180 0 21:19 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/tracker/filters/application/msword_filter /home/matze/test.doc [...]
matze 15516 15514 72 21:19 ? 00:00:01 cp /home/matze/test.doc /tmp/tmpdir.15514/tmpfile.15514

msword_filter copies the 20GB file to /tmp although there is only 6GB free space.
test.doc is no real word document in the first place.
I dont know what truecrypt does to the file to cause tracker to re-index. A 'touch test.doc' doesn't cause the problem.

msword_filter should check if there is enough free space available in /tmp.
Workarounds are renaming the file or putting it on the ignore list in tracker preferences.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu May 15 21:52:16 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: tracker 0.6.6-0ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_IE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: tracker
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-16-generic i686

Tags: apport-bug
Revision history for this message
matze_ (matze-) wrote :
Revision history for this message
James Westby (james-w) wrote :

Hi,

I think as this is tracker that this is just a wishlist bug. I certainly shouldn't
do it if there is not enough space, and the only downside is not indexing the file.

If it needs somewhere temporary to uncompress it or similar then /tmp
(or $TMPDIR if defined) is exactly the right place to do it. If there is not enough
space then there is little that can be done.

The other alternative would presumably not require temporary space to work,
but that's still a wishlist bug I think.

Thanks,

James

Changed in tracker:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
Revision history for this message
matze_ (matze-) wrote :

The problem is even if there was enough disk space, this is causing a lot of disk activity and filling the disk up.

Could msword_filter check if the file is really a word document before copying?
At the moment it copies an arbitrary file just because it has a *.doc filename.

It was not very obvious what was actually going on.
I unmount my truecrypt volume and watch disk space beeing eaten away for no apparent reason. Computer gets slower and slower in the process. Of course I suspected truecrypt to be the problem.
I was suprised to find tracker running, I had disabled it in System->Preferences->Sessions. Buts thats a different story:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tracker/+bug/215861

Revision history for this message
Richard Seguin (sectech) wrote :

This issue has been marked as a 'wishlist' which means that the issue will be considered when they are improving the package in future versions. Thank you for for reporting this issue and feel free to report any other bugs that you find

Richard Seguin

Richard Seguin (sectech)
Changed in tracker:
status: New → Confirmed
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