syscall: incorrect value for TCGETS and TCSETS in std syscall pkg on ppc64x

[laboger]

Please answer these questions before submitting your issue. Thanks!

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

go 1.8, master

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

Ubuntu and RH ppc64le and ppc64

What did you do?

Tried to use ioctl syscall with TCGETS on ppc64le.

What did you expect to see?

Valid result.

What did you see instead?

Error message: inappropriate ioctl for device

This error occurs when using the syscall package but works when using golang.org/x/sys/unix due to the fact that these two packages define different values for TCGETS and TCSETS:

In golang syscall package, ztypes_linux_ppc64le.go and ztypes_linux_ppc64.go:

    TCGETS = 0x403c7413
    TCSETS = 0x803c7414

In golang.org/sys/unix/zerrors_linux_ppc64le.go and zerrors_linux_ppc64.go

TCGETS = 0x402c7413
TCSETS = 0x802c7414

I see there is a comment in the golang.org documentation about the use of the syscall package being "locked down". My assumption is that the syscall package should be fixed since it is now incorrect.

Testcase:
ioctlbug.go.txt

Failing execution:
Error on get: inappropriate ioctl for device

importing from golang.org/x/sys/unix allows the test to work.

[clnperez]

This was found as a result of investigating opencontainers/runc#1364

[laboger]

@bradfitz Who can answer questions about this issue?

Is the answer supposed to be that users should be using golang.org/x/sys/unix instead of syscall from golang std?

Personally I think that the syscall package in golang should be correct. But it is not clear to me how to get the correct value generated from the sh and pl files that are used to create them, and why the one in golang.org/x is correct but the other is not.

[bradfitz]

Why is std incorrect? Have these values changed over time? If so, that suggests even more that the answer is using x/sys/unix and not trying to keep syscall up to date.

But yes, the real answer is that everybody should use x/sys and pretend that the std package "syscall" doesn't exist.

[ianlancetaylor]

I'll slightly disagree with @bradfitz and say that if the values in the syscall package were always wrong, then I think it would be OK to correct them. It looks like they were introduced by @minux in https://golang.org/cl/127170043, where he says they were autogenerated. Minux, do you know anything about these values?

[bradfitz]

Yeah, if they were always wrong and they by definition never change and it's just a result of a bug in our generator program, I'm fine changing it. But that does mean that users will need to wait for a new version of Go for the fix, whereas if runc used golang.org/x/sys/unix, they'd have the fix already.

[laboger]

It looks like this problem was identified here https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/golang-nuts/K5NoG8slez0/mixUse17iaMJ and fixed some time after that in golang.org/x/sys/unix.

This explains why syscall and golang.org/x/sys/unix are different. And just fixing one value in syscall might not be enough -- when other ioctl functions are used they could be wrong also.

[clnperez]

So it looks like they were always wrong, and it would be good to fix this since so many projects do still syscall. I see that the rec is definitely to move (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang-dev/cEASnHIXmLI), but at least the container-focused projects haven't yet.

@bradfitz, I did a quick substitution of syscall for sys in parts of the runc code, and it looks like there are some things missing from sys like Signal. Actually, it looks like syscall.Signal is used by sys, so, there's no clean break from syscall. Is this something I should take up on the mailing list if I want to get advice on moving over? It seems strange to mix the two.

[ianlancetaylor]

I can't think of a reason for golang.org/x/sys/unix to use syscall.Signal. Perhaps we should just replace it. Anyhow, yes, raise this on golang-dev. Thanks.

[laboger]

I've been trying to understand how sys/unix could be fixed, but I can't get the generator scripts to work. Here are the errors I get when I run this:
GOOS=linux GOARCH=ppc64le ./mkall.sh
could not determine kind of name for C.TIOCGETC
could not determine kind of name for C.TIOCGETP
could not determine kind of name for C.TIOCGLTC
could not determine kind of name for C.TIOCSETC
could not determine kind of name for C.TIOCSETN
could not determine kind of name for C.TIOCSETP
could not determine kind of name for C.TIOCSLTC

[ianlancetaylor]

What do the definitions for those symbols look like in the header files on your system?