Restarting Lighthouse sometimes stalls due to in-use sockets

[michaelsproul]

Description

Some users have reported that Lighthouse cannot be restarted quickly due to TCP ports not being freed immediately after process exit. After a bit of research, it seems that this is a consequence of TCP's design, and that most operating systems wait 30-120 seconds after socket closure in order to avoid delayed packets being sent to a new listener. This thread has a good summary: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3229860/what-is-the-meaning-of-so-reuseaddr-setsockopt-option-linux/3233022#3233022

If we establish that Lighthouse's networking stack is robust against delayed packets, we could opt into receiving them by setting the SO_REUSEADDR flag when binding TCP sockets. Actually doing this could be a bit tricky, because we might have to punch through Tokio & LibP2P's abstractions, but perhaps they already provide configuration options.

Until then, anyone who experiences issues rebinding sockets can wait out the TIME_WAIT period. You can see sockets in this state using a command like:

ss --numeric -o state time-wait

Version

v1.1.3, likely v1.2.0 as well

[michaelsproul]

This may also be the source of some CI failures:

Mar 01 06:56:30.744 CRIT Unable to listen on libp2p address      listen_multiaddr: /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/42426, error: Other(Custom { kind: Other, error: Other(A(A(Underlying(Os { code: 98, kind: AddrInUse, message: "Address already in use" })))) }), service: libp2p, service: node_2
thread 'main' panicked at 'called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: "Failed to start network: Error(Libp2p(Msg(\"Libp2p was unable to listen on the given listen address.\")), State { next_error: None, backtrace: InternalBacktrace { backtrace: None } })"', testing/simulator/src/eth1_sim.rs:223:41
note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace

https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse/runs/2001822504?check_suite_focus=true

[pawanjay176]

Turns out libp2p has SO_REUSEADDR set for all its tcp sockets by default (https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/blob/master/transports/tcp/src/lib.rs#L330).

From the socket docs for SO_REUSEADDR

When the listening socket is bound to INADDR_ANY with a specific port then it is not possible to bind to this port for any local address.

We always bind to 0.0.0.0 in libp2p and I think that's why we sometimes see AddrInUse errors inspite of our sockets having the SO_REUSEADDR option set.

From what I have gathered from the stack overflow thread you linked above and https://stackoverflow.com/a/14388707/4914568
, we can rebind the socket on 0.0.0.0: port only after the closing socket atleast reaches TIME_WAIT state.

Maybe ensuring that we close all libp2p listener streams(https://docs.rs/libp2p/0.35.1/libp2p/swarm/struct.ExpandedSwarm.html#method.remove_listener) before dropping libp2p would ensure that we don't have any hanging connections?

[remyroy]

Properly closing all connections and using SO_REUSEADDR would really be useful for an update process with minimal downtime (stopping services, updating binary, restarting services).

[remyroy]

I just upgraded to v1.3.0 and I did not have this issue compared to recent previous versions. Was this recently fixed?

[michaelsproul]

I just upgraded to v1.3.0 and I did not have this issue compared to recent previous versions. Was this recently fixed?

Not as far as I'm aware. As @pawanjay176 pointed out we're already using SO_REUSEADDR, so there must be something else at play (and maybe only in some cases, like if there are certain connections in use when the process exits).

We could maybe try SO_REUSEPORT instead, as it seems to be the more modern flag. Or as Pawan says, see if we can trace the issue to an unclosed libp2p stream.

[AgeManning]

We've had a number of version updates since this, I've not witnessed this issue. Lets re-open if it arises again.

[michaelsproul]

Several users have reported seeing this recently so I'm going to reopen it (related GitHub issue: #3500).

[karalabe]

Still borked

Oct 04 06:42:28.585 CRIT Failed to start beacon node             reason: Failed to start network: Error(Libp2p(Msg("Io(Os { code: 48, kind: AddrInUse, message: \"Address already in use\" })")), State { next_error: None, backtrace: InternalBacktrace { backtrace: Some(   0: backtrace::capture::Backtrace::new_unresolved
   1: error_chain::backtrace::imp::InternalBacktrace::new
   2: <error_chain::State as core::default::Default>::default
   3: <lighthouse_network::types::error::Error as core::convert::From<alloc::string::String>>::from
   4: lighthouse_network::service::Network<AppReqId,TSpec>::new::{{closure}}
   5: beacon_node::ProductionBeaconNode<E>::new::{{closure}}
   6: <futures_util::future::select::Select<A,B> as core::future::future::Future>::poll
   7: <futures_util::future::future::map::Map<Fut,F> as core::future::future::Future>::poll
   8: <futures_util::future::future::flatten::Flatten<Fut,<Fut as core::future::future::Future>::Output> as core::future::future::Future>::poll
   9: tokio::runtime::task::core::Core<T,S>::poll
  10: tokio::runtime::task::harness::Harness<T,S>::poll
  11: tokio::runtime::scheduler::multi_thread::worker::Context::run_task
  12: tokio::runtime::context::scoped::Scoped<T>::set
  13: tokio::runtime::context::runtime::enter_runtime
  14: tokio::runtime::scheduler::multi_thread::worker::run
  15: <core::panic::unwind_safe::AssertUnwindSafe<F> as core::ops::function::FnOnce<()>>::call_once
  16: tokio::runtime::task::harness::Harness<T,S>::poll
  17: tokio::runtime::blocking::pool::Inner::run
  18: std::sys_common::backtrace::__rust_begin_short_backtrace
  19: core::ops::function::FnOnce::call_once{{vtable.shim}}
  20: std::sys::unix::thread::Thread::new::thread_start
  21: __pthread_joiner_wake
) } })

I've stopped lighthouse half a day ago and can't start it back up, just keeps failing with this.

[michaelsproul]

@karalabe Half a day seems too long for socket reuse. Are you 100% you don't have something listening on 9000/9001? Since v4.5.0 we also listen on 9001 UDP for QUIC.

If there's something listening, it should show under lsof:

sudo lsof -nP -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN
sudo lsof -nP -iUDP