Client persistently wants to halt if SHUTDOWN_TIME is set and the current time is between SHTUDOWN_TIME and midnight

Assigning to Marc Gariepy who knows more about that part of the code than I do.

I am astonished that this bug is set to "affects 1 person". I have tried out the SHUTDOWN_TIME option for the first time today and immediately ran into the described problem -- as must everyone who uses it.

In short: Using this option in lts.conf renders all clients useless after the specified time. I do not believe that this is the intended behavior.

This bug report is three years old, it is about a well documented feature of LTSP. This feature is broken since at least 07/2010. Please go and fix it.

> After looking in /usr/share/ldm/rc.d/I01-halt-check I noticed two
> issues. At first, the script does not check if the $SHUTDOWN_TIME
> variable is actually defined (has a value)

Fixed this part of the issue:

  https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ltsp-upstream/ltsp/ldm-trunk/revision/1560

It's a little cleaner to check if the variable is specified than relying
on the fact that the date command errors out when no value is specified.

> and that the date checks tell the system to always shutdown between
> the shutdown time specified and midnight.

So, there are two places where SHUTDOWN_TIME is used.

In the LTSP portion of the code, it's a cron job that will only be
triggered at the specified time in SHUTDOWN_TIME, and only if there
isn't a logged in LDM session.

In the LDM portion of the code, it's a hook that's run when LDM is
initialized, and as you've noticed, is triggered any time after the time
specified by SHUTDOWN_TIME, on the same date... i.e. between
SHUTDOWN_TIME and midnight. This is in case a user is logged in when the
LTSP cron job is triggered.

I think a cleaner way might be to have the cron job create the
/var/log/ltsp-logout-action file if a user is logged into LDM at the
time the cron job runs, and otherwise reboot. Then LDM will respond
appropriately, but only once. This should allow all the code to be
removed from LDM entirely, and only be present in LTSP.

live well,
  vagrant

On 2014-09-20 14:21:29 -0500, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
> I think a cleaner way might be to have the cron job create the
> /var/log/ltsp-logout-action file if a user is logged into LDM at the
> time the cron job runs, and otherwise reboot. Then LDM will respond
> appropriately, but only once. This should allow all the code to be
> removed from LDM entirely, and only be present in LTSP.

Untested patch to implement this attached.

live well,
  vagrant

On 2014-09-20 14:45:08 -0500, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
> On 2014-09-20 14:21:29 -0500, Vagrant Cascadian wrote:
>> I think a cleaner way might be to have the cron job create the
>> /var/log/ltsp-logout-action file if a user is logged into LDM at the
>> time the cron job runs, and otherwise reboot. Then LDM will respond
>> appropriately, but only once. This should allow all the code to be
>> removed from LDM entirely, and only be present in LTSP.
>
> Untested patch to implement this attached.
...
> ** Patch added: "shutdown-time-improvements.diff"
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/604908/+attachment/4210003/+files/shutdown-time-improvements.diff

Patch works. The only real difference is that the user doesn't receive
any feedback about what's happening.

live well,
  vagrant

Fixed committed to bzr:

https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ltsp-upstream/ltsp/ltsp-trunk/revision/2601

Also need to be running LDM without the halt-check hook:

https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ltsp-upstream/ltsp/ldm-trunk/revision/1570

Fix released in LTSP 5.5.5 and LDM 2.2.15.