This bug appears when running the command apache -k install or apache -k config if there are CustomLog entries in the configuration that pipe to an external program (e.g. rotatelogs.exe). For each piping CustomLog, Apache creates the corresponding process. Then the Apache process exits, leaving the logging processes alive, probably waiting for input on stdin (which will never come, since the process isn't attached to a console). To reproduce the bug, change the CustomLog line in the default httpd.conf to: CustomLog "|/apache2/bin/rotatelogs.exe logs/access_%Y-%m-%d.log 86400 +60" combined Then execute apache -k install -f conf/httpd.conf. When the command is finished, check the Task Manager (or a better tool, such as Process Explorer) for a rotatelogs.exe process which must be killed manually. This bug also appears with a simple test logger, so the bug is not specific to rotatelogs.exe.
I confirm this behavior with v2.0.44/Win2k. It also leaves a hung process when service starts up and does not send to the stdin on the log processor. This behavior is with "rotatelogs.exe" or "cronolog.exe" So I don't think it is anything to do with the external programs either. It does not have the problem with the ErrorLog directive. This works properly piped to an external program.
v2.0.43 is not affected... compiled and tested on same system as 2.0.44.
Created attachment 17630 [details] Patch to fix Hanging pipe logger processes. It looks like on Win32 of log.c the piped log always starts the piped process thru a cmd.exe shell. Which seems to be the root of this hanging piped CustomLog / ErrorLog. Changing the process creation from: apr_procattr_cmdtype_set(procattr, APR_SHELLCMD_ENV) to: apr_procattr_cmdtype_set(procattr, APR_PROGRAM_ENV) Will cause it to act the way it used and make it worrk correctly. CMD.exe will then only be utilize for .cmd and .bat loggers where it is necessary.
We've run into this problem on linux w/ httpd 2.2.x using ErrorLog - both with rotatelogs and cronolog.
The proposed patch seems to work for us on Apache 2.2.3.
(In reply to comment #4) > We've run into this problem on linux w/ httpd 2.2.x using ErrorLog - both with > rotatelogs and cronolog. Have you checked if your problem is solved by the patch for Bug 40651 (http://svn.apache.org/viewvc?view=rev&revision=452431)?
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