fix(mcp): a failed handshake must not strand the child process
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An MCP server whose `initialize` answer is an error — a broken or version-
mismatched connector — starts fine and then never exits. `McpServer::start`
returned `Err` correctly, but the `Child` lives in the read-loop task rather
than in the returned value, so `kill_on_drop` followed a task nothing ever
drops. Every retry therefore left a live process holding three pipes and a
pidfd, and the supervisor's retry ceiling is deliberately not permanent.

The end state was not a dead connector but a dead instance: the process hit
its 1024-descriptor limit, `accept()` began failing with EMFILE, and incoming
connections queued on a socket nobody could accept from — while the process,
the port and every other connector still looked healthy. Observed in
production at ~5h from the first bad handshake to unreachable, with 229
orphaned interpreters.

`stop_server`/`stop_all` had the same hole from the other side: they document
the dropped handle as killing the process, but the task holds its end of
stdin, so the child stayed blocked on a read that would never return.

Both close with one seam. `McpServer` now owns a oneshot sender whose receiver
the read-loop selects on; nothing ever sends, so the drop is the message. That
covers a deliberate stop, the last `Arc` going away, and a `?` in `start()`
unwinding past the local binding before it was ever returned — including the
caller's `timeout`, which drops the same future. The loop then kills and, as
importantly, reaps: an unreaped child trades the orphan for a zombie holding
the same pipes.

Both leaks are covered by tests that fail without the fix.

Also raise LimitNOFILE to 65536: the installers write it, and update.sh heals
an existing unit additively, leaving an admin's own value alone. The leak is
the bug, but 1024 for a process sharing descriptors between the listener,
every user's SQLite handles and three pipes per connector is thin regardless.
This commit is contained in:
Daniele
2026-08-24 17:34:44 +01:00
parent 72fa40708a
commit 67fc1455c5
7 changed files with 340 additions and 11 deletions
+9
View File
@@ -62,9 +62,18 @@ release PR may merge — and a section is closed at the commit that bumps it.
- Unencrypted users are unlocked and their runtimes started at boot, so Telegram, cron and
the background agents work after a restart without anyone opening the web app first.
- PDFs render through pdf.js instead of an iframe.
- The service is allowed 65536 open files instead of the default 1024. New installs get it
from the installer and existing ones from an ordinary update, unless you have set your
own limit, in which case yours is left alone.
### Fixed
- A connector that fails to start no longer leaves its process behind. One that started
but answered the handshake wrong — a broken or mismatched connector — was left running
on every retry, and the accumulated processes eventually used up every file handle the
server had: within hours the app stopped answering altogether, while the process, the
port and every other connector still looked healthy. Stopping or deactivating a
connector now genuinely ends its process too.
- The server keeps running after you log out of the box; the install / update / uninstall
scripts were hardened alongside it.
- Skald survives a restart of the Docker daemon.