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MDEV-5479: Prevent mysqld from stealing Unix socket of another active instance#4874

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FaramosCZ wants to merge 1 commit intoMariaDB:mainfrom
FaramosCZ:MDEV-5479
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MDEV-5479: Prevent mysqld from stealing Unix socket of another active instance#4874
FaramosCZ wants to merge 1 commit intoMariaDB:mainfrom
FaramosCZ:MDEV-5479

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When two MariaDB server instances are configured with the same Unix socket path but different TCP ports, the second instance starting up would unconditionally unlink() the first instance's active socket file in network_init(). This silently broke the first instance's ability to accept local socket connections, with no error or warning.

Root cause:
The call (void) unlink(mysqld_unix_port) in network_init() (sql/mysqld.cc) removed any existing socket file without checking whether another running server process was actively listening on it. Notably, the bind() error handler immediately following the unlink already prints "Do you already have another server running on socket: %s ?" -- but this message could never trigger, because the unconditional unlink() removed the socket before bind() had a chance to fail.

Fix:
Before unlinking an existing socket file, attempt to connect() to it:

  • If connect() succeeds, another server is actively using the socket. Print an error message and abort startup via unireg_abort(1).
  • If connect() fails (ECONNREFUSED or similar), the socket is stale from a previous unclean shutdown. Proceed to unlink() as before.
  • If the socket file does not exist at all, skip directly to bind().
  • If the file exists but is not a socket (S_ISSOCK check), treat it as removable to preserve the previous behavior for non-socket files.

Before this patch:
$ mysqld --port=13306 --socket=/tmp/mysql.sock # starts fine
$ mysqld --port=13307 --socket=/tmp/mysql.sock

starts, steals socket

First instance can no longer accept socket connections

After this patch:
$ mysqld --port=13306 --socket=/tmp/mysql.sock # starts fine
$ mysqld --port=13307 --socket=/tmp/mysql.sock # refuses to start:

"Another server process is already using the socket file

'/tmp/mysql.sock'. Aborting."

First instance continues to operate normally

Test plan:

  1. Start first MariaDB instance with --socket=/tmp/test.sock --port=13306
  2. Verify it is listening: mysql --socket=/tmp/test.sock -e "SELECT 1"
  3. Attempt to start second instance: --socket=/tmp/test.sock --port=13307
  4. Verify second instance aborts with the new error message in error log
  5. Verify first instance still accepts connections via the socket
  6. Stop the first instance, verify a new instance can start (stale socket cleanup still works)

@gkodinov gkodinov added the External Contribution All PRs from entities outside of MariaDB Foundation, Corporation, Codership agreements. label Mar 27, 2026
@FaramosCZ FaramosCZ force-pushed the MDEV-5479 branch 9 times, most recently from 80aea74 to d9ec59e Compare March 29, 2026 18:51
@FaramosCZ FaramosCZ marked this pull request as ready for review March 29, 2026 19:47
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@gkodinov gkodinov left a comment

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Thank you for your contribution. This is a preliminary review. Frankly, this is a borderline bugfix IMHO. I'd consider doing it in 10.11. But let's leave that for the final reviewer.

Some portability suggestions below.

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LGTM. Please stand by for the final review.

When mysqld starts up and the configured Unix socket path is
already in use by another process, network_init()
unconditionally unlink()s the active socket file. This
silently breaks the other process's ability to accept local
connections. The typical scenario is two MariaDB instances
configured with the same socket path but different TCP ports,
but any process listening on that path is affected.

Root cause: the call (void) unlink(mysqld_unix_port) in
network_init() removes an existing socket file without
checking whether another process is actively listening on it.
Notably, the bind() error handler immediately following the
unlink already warns about another running server -- but this
message could never trigger because the unconditional
unlink() removed the socket before bind() had a chance to
fail.

Fix: add handle_stale_unix_socket() that, before unlinking an
existing socket file, attempts to connect() to it:
- If connect() succeeds, another process is actively using
  the socket. Abort startup with an error message.
- If connect() fails with EACCES, the socket is active but
  owned by another user. Abort -- we must not unlink a
  socket we cannot even verify.
- If connect() fails with ECONNREFUSED or similar, the
  socket is stale from a previous unclean shutdown. Proceed
  with unlink() as before.
- If the file exists but is not a socket (S_ISSOCK check),
  remove it to preserve previous behavior.

connect() was chosen over flock()-based advisory locking
because flock() requires managing a separate lock file
alongside the socket (creation, cleanup, and handling of
orphaned lock files), and does not work reliably on network
filesystems. connect() probes the socket directly with no
extra files and no NFS dependency. This is the same approach
PostgreSQL uses for socket conflict prevention.

Co-Authored-By: Claude AI <noreply@anthropic.com>
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3 participants