App-Manager hangs during installing custom app via command line/admin site.

[Ajay K]

In my install script for my Custom App I take some post install actions. However until I upgraded the Conduit firmware to 5.2.1, I never got any errors. However since I upgraded to 5.2.1 I get the following error indicated below as a result of running the following post install commands. What is weird is that even though the app-manager seems to hang and I have to force exit at the command prompt and if I go into the file system of the conduit via win-scp, I see all the necessary files have been installed, however if I login to the conduit admin site, the custom app isn’t listed on the app’s page. Here is what is run in the post install script.

# postinstall is invoked by app-manager immediately after installing a custom app.
  postinstall)
      msg="Updating the custom app launch priority on post install!"
      echo -n $msg
      logger -t Install $msg
      #update the custom app, to launch before the lora-wan-server service.
      update-rc.d -f customapp remove
      update-rc.d customapp defaults 79 1

Error I get when the update-rc.d remove command is executed:
update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/customapp exists during rc.d purge (continuing)

Also to make it worse if I try and install the custom app via the admin site, since its a new addition thru’ the app’s page in 5.2.1 conduit firmware, the web site hangs and if I exit out of the browser, I can’t seem to log back in and the web site browser just says connecting and never is able to connect.

So I rebooted the Conduit and now everything works fine, the custom app is now listed out in the app’s page. So what changed in the latest conduit firmware, that the app-manager seems to hang while installing the custom app either via the command prompt or via the admin app’s page?

Thanks,
Ajay.

[Ajay K]

Any ideas as to why the app-manager doesn’t exit once the installation is completed?

Thanks,
Ajay

[Jeff Hatch]

Ajay,

What does the APPMANAGER logging in /var/log/messages say at the point where it hangs? Is it possible that there are two instances of app-manager running that are not doing a status? The APPMANAGER does log quite a bit of information.

Jeff

[Ajay K]

Hi Jeff,

I was planning to open a ticket and that way I can attach the complete messages log file for Multitech to review. and also provide our .tar.gz file as well so it can be tested on the Multitech conduit. Since this is something new that is occurring on 5.2.1. We have not seen this particular hang prior to this version of the firmware and also like I mentioned, everything we need installed was successfully installed, however since the app-manager hangs, the custom app doesn’t show up on the admin site and requires a reboot to finish whatever is holding the app-manager from completing the install.

Thanks,
Ajay

[Jeff Hatch]

Ajay,

One pertinent question: Are you trying to execute anything from the tmpfs (ie. /tmp /var/volatile/tmp). A security change was made in 5.2.1 to prohibit execution from tmpfs due to a number of our large customers identifying it as a risk on their security analysis tools.

Jeff

[Ajay K]

Hi Jeff,

When I executed the app-manager from the command prompt, I had copied the *.tar.gz file to the /var/volatile/tmp folder. Usually in the previous versions I could copy the file to /var/volatile and execute it from there, however as of 5.2.1 I get access denied errors when trying to transfer the file to /var/volatile. I could only copy the file to /var/volatile/tmp folder and execute it from there.

Like I mentioned I am not see any failure in the install script completing, its the app-manager that seems to not be exiting out once the install script for the custom app is completed and only a reboot seems to ensure a clean install.

The install of the custom app via the admin site is worse at this point.

Thanks,
Ajay

[Jeff Hatch]

Ajay,

Does your Install script install any dependencies such as IPK’s in the provisioning directory of the tar archive? I wonder if the application gets untar’ed in the correct place and everything, but execution of something by the Install script in the tmpfs is causing app-manager to hang. Either that or something in the untar process is causing a hang.

Have you created a Support Portal request? While it will be beneficial to identify the root cause here, it will be better to do the debugging via a portal case. There you could share more about what the application install process is doing.

Jeff

[Ajay K]

Hi Jeff,

We have opened a ticket with Case #5102781. Usually Multitech is very quick to acknowledge a ticket, but I have not seen any response on this ticket for the last 48 hours.

Thanks,
Ajay.

[Jeff Hatch]

Ajay,

I’ll see what’s going on. I may spend some time on it myself, but I am swamped at the moment.

Jeff

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