socket.getservbyname(), socket.getservbyport(), socket.getprotobyname() are not threadsafe

[dwfreed]

BPO	30482
Nosy	@pitrou, @vstinner, @njsmith, @dwfreed

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2017-05-26.09:32:15.697>
labels = ['extension-modules', 'type-bug', '3.7']
title = 'socket.getservbyname(), socket.getservbyport(), socket.getprotobyname() are not threadsafe'
updated_at = <Date 2017-05-27.07:09:19.668>
user = 'https://github.com/dwfreed'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2017-05-27.07:09:19.668>
actor = 'njs'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Extension Modules']
creation = <Date 2017-05-26.09:32:15.697>
creator = 'dwfreed'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 30482
keywords = []
message_count = 3.0
messages = ['294540', '294545', '294564']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['pitrou', 'vstinner', 'njs', 'dwfreed']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = 'needs patch'
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue30482'
versions = ['Python 2.7', 'Python 3.5', 'Python 3.6', 'Python 3.7']

Linked PRs

• gh-74667: Make socket.getservbyname(), getservbyport() and getprotobyname() thread-safe #151850

[dwfreed]

On at least Linux (and probably most other UNIXes, except OS X), the C functions getservbyname(), getservbyport(), and getprotobyname() are not threadsafe. CPython's wrappers around these functions in the socket module do nothing to cover up this fact. Simple reproduction script for getservbyname (others similar):

import threading
import socket

def getservbyname_loop(service, port):
        while True:
                result = socket.getservbyname(service)
                if result != port:
                        raise RuntimeError("thread-safety broken, got %d, expected %d" % (result, port))

thread1 = threading.Thread(target=getservbyname_loop, args=("ssh", 22))
thread2 = threading.Thread(target=getservbyname_loop, args=("smtp", 25))
thread1.start()
thread2.start()

One of the threads will throw the RuntimeError, saying it got the port number the other thread should have gotten.

Naive fix: a lock (eg, just use the netdb_lock already created in the module)

Proper fix: use the libc's reentrant variant if available, and fall back to locking if not (see gethostbyname_ex() implementation for example).

I'd be happy to work on this, but as I don't have access to anything other than Linux and OS X at the moment, it would be helpful if platform maintainers could chime in on what if any reentrant variants of these functions exist on their platforms so we can have a more proper fix.

[pitrou]

The configure.ac script should check for the availability of gethostbyname_r and friends, like it already does for other functions.

[dwfreed]

It already checks for gethostbyname_r, but the comments in socketmodule.c mention that configure seems to get it wrong. Those comments are probably old, though, so perhaps that can be revisited as well.