Bug 38795 - [PATCH] StandardContext doesn't always reset thread's contextClassLoader
Summary: [PATCH] StandardContext doesn't always reset thread's contextClassLoader
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Tomcat 5
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Catalina (show other bugs)
Version: 5.0.30
Hardware: Other other
: P2 normal (vote)
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Tomcat Developers Mailing List
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2006-02-27 17:52 UTC by Michał Borowiecki
Modified: 2007-10-22 17:47 UTC (History)
1 user (show)



Attachments
Defensive coding patch for all bind/unbind usage NEEDS PEER REVIEW (6.08 KB, patch)
2006-03-16 04:38 UTC, Darryl Miles
Details | Diff
Defensive coding patch for 5.0.xx (6.15 KB, patch)
2006-03-20 09:28 UTC, Darryl Miles
Details | Diff
Defensive coding patch for 4.1.xx (12.09 KB, patch)
2006-03-20 10:34 UTC, Darryl Miles
Details | Diff

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Description Michał Borowiecki 2006-02-27 17:52:03 UTC
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.stop() method changes the current
thead's context classloader but does not always reset it if an exception is thrown.

It resets the classloader in the finally clause of a try statement, but the try
statement begins too late. If an exception is thrown before the try statament is
reached, the contextClassLoader is not reset to its original value.

Here's the code fragment:

        // Binding thread
        ClassLoader oldCCL = bindThread();

        // Stop our filters
        filterStop();

        // Stop our application listeners
        listenerStop();

        // Stop ContainerBackgroundProcessor thread
        super.threadStop();

        if ((manager != null) && (manager instanceof Lifecycle)) {
            ((Lifecycle) manager).stop();
        }

        // Finalize our character set mapper
        setCharsetMapper(null);

        // Normal container shutdown processing
        if (log.isDebugEnabled())
            log.debug("Processing standard container shutdown");
        // Notify our interested LifecycleListeners
        lifecycle.fireLifecycleEvent(STOP_EVENT, null);
        started = false;

        try {
...

        } finally {

            // Unbinding thread
            unbindThread(oldCCL);

        }


An exception is sometimes thrown in this statement (which is before the try
statement):

        if ((manager != null) && (manager instanceof Lifecycle)) {
            ((Lifecycle) manager).stop();
        }

due to bug 30489 (java.lang.IllegalStateException: removeAttribute: Session
already invalidated)


Leaving the substituted classLoader severely disrupts the JBoss deployment
scanner causing it to throw an exception and fail in each loop. Restarting JBoss
is required to recover from this problem.
Comment 1 Darryl Miles 2006-03-01 14:23:33 UTC
I read with interest your report and wonder if some other infrequenct problems
that I've experienced in the past maybe related to this section of code.


Would it make sense to use code like:

try { filterStop(); } catch(Exception e) { e.printSomething(); }

try { listenerStop(); } catch(Exception e) { e.printSomething(); }

etc... the idea being that each invokation to web-application code (from TC
internal code) should not be able to upset TCs shutdown mechanism and should try
a best effort to do everything properly.  Then at the end of it all just cut
away the web-app and cleanup.

My suggestion above is making a huge presumption that filterStop() invokes all 
the active javax.servlet.Filter#destroy() filters under the context to shut them
down.  Looking briefly through that particular path I can't see any trapping of
web-app exceptions.

StandardContext#filterStop()
 ApplicationFilterConfig#release()
  javax.servlet.Filter#destroy()

In the absense of any mandated behaviour (from JSRs) I would think the
exceptions are best caught in ApplicationFilterConfig#release() so that other
filters within the same context get called (call it "best effort").  I dont
understand the org.apache.catalina.SecurityUtil stuff in the same place, maybe
there is other ways to invoke javax.servlet.Filter#destroy() that need the same
treatment.


Its very important that TCs internal accounting state can never be disrupted no
matter how badly a web-app behaves.  An audit of this code to wrap the whole
section with a suitable finally clause to ensure TCs internal state retains its
integrity makes perfect sense to me.  The two things together can only increase
robustness with minimal cost.


Possibily related bug reports discussing web-app generated Exceptions during
context shutdown:

Bug #37498

Bug #36250 => Comment #14
(http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=36250#c14)
Comment 2 Darryl Miles 2006-03-16 04:38:41 UTC
Created attachment 17909 [details]
Defensive coding patch for all bind/unbind usage NEEDS PEER REVIEW

This is a patch base on a code walk (rather than a full understanding of the
code) and some re-work to eliminate potential problem that seem possible from
the perspective of that code walk.

Namely protection from Exception generation at the wrong moment between
bind/unbind calls.


There are two minor changes in behaviour with this patch, which I think are
more correct than the original (but then I didn't take the time the fully
understand the code so please excuse me).

#start() around line 4063 if ok==false we don't call bindThread() now.	Since
the only way we get to call unbind is in the finally block within the if(ok)
condition.  The means the code around line 4155 to 4166 may or may not be in
bound state, depending upon ok==true|false, was this originally intended ?

#start() around line if unbindThread(oldCC) were to throw an exception, before
we would call unbindThread(oldCC) again, twice in a row, maybe this is safe
anyway but now we only call it the once.

#stop() as the bug report suggests wrapping all the calls within the try block
make defensive sense to me.


Other than that for the normal code path execution should be the same as
before, but nows its very easy to see from the code that flipping between bind
and unbind is better protected from exceptions.
Comment 3 Remy Maucherat 2006-03-16 09:42:51 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> Created an attachment (id=17909) [edit]
> Defensive coding patch for all bind/unbind usage NEEDS PEER REVIEW

It doesn't look like a good patch.

> Its very important that TCs internal accounting state can never
> be disrupted no matter how badly a web-app behaves

It's very funny. Let's see:
- ways to guarantee thread release: none
- ways to guarantee memory release: none
- ways to guarantee classloading is clean (ex: log4j): none

Please write a letter to Sun for me :)
Comment 4 Remy Maucherat 2006-03-16 14:45:18 UTC
I have improved the try/finally, especially in stop.
Comment 5 Darryl Miles 2006-03-16 23:14:53 UTC
Thats really great, thanks very much.
Comment 6 Darryl Miles 2006-03-20 09:28:49 UTC
Created attachment 17923 [details]
Defensive coding patch for 5.0.xx

This is based on Remy's SVN commit, I think it would benifit 5.0.x users.
Comment 7 Darryl Miles 2006-03-20 10:34:38 UTC
Created attachment 17924 [details]
Defensive coding patch for 4.1.xx

I'm sorry there are too many hoops in the BUILDING.txt for me to even test
compile   this for 4.1.xx.  Again shoud be based on Remy's SVN commit.
Comment 8 Darryl Miles 2006-03-20 10:40:47 UTC
Reopened for additional patch review.
Comment 9 Yoav Shapira 2006-04-14 19:04:56 UTC
Changing version to 5.0.30, as this was taken care of by Remy for the 5.5
branch, so 5.0.30 is the latest relevant version.  Also downgrading priority
from critical to normal.
Comment 10 Mark Thomas 2006-06-11 17:59:47 UTC
Done for 4.1.x
Comment 11 Mark Thomas 2007-10-22 17:47:31 UTC
This will nto be fixed in 5.0.x since that branch is no longer supported.