Determine which processes need a restart with checkrestart/needrestart

Proper software patch management helps reducing weaknesses on your systems. But even if you patched an outdated system, old processes and libraries can continue to run in memory. For example when a library is updated, an active program might still use the old version. To really finish the process of software patching, we have to do more. This includes preparation, performing the update and finally check if we need a restart of software components. In this post we have a look at several options, to properly execute this last part of the process. An introduction into the world of tools like checkrestart and needrestart.

Checkrestart

The first utility to help with the job of finding processes using old files, is checkrestart. It is part of the debian-goodies package and only available for Debian based systems. It uses lsof to determine open files and what processes using such resource.

Installation

apt install debian-goodies

Requirements

• Debian (or clone)
• Python
• LSOF
• root permissions

Usage

Running the checkrestart command will give an overview of what it discovered and what processes need a restart. It shows the processes using old files and determines what init scripts are related to these processes. Of course, those which it can find. For the others it will display the related processes, so you can manually take action.

Example output

# checkrestart 
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfsd-fuse file system /run/user/1000/gvfs
 Output information may be incomplete.
Found 68 processes using old versions of upgraded files
(48 distinct programs)
(40 distinct packages)

Of these, 7 seem to contain init scripts which can be used to restart them:
The following packages seem to have init scripts that could be used
to restart them:
sudo:
 3908 /usr/bin/sudo
cups-browsed:
 1457 /usr/sbin/cups-browsed
samba:
 965 /usr/sbin/smbd
 700 /usr/sbin/smbd
 2371 /usr/sbin/nmbd
mdm:
 1491 /usr/sbin/mdm
pulseaudio:
 3039 /usr/bin/pulseaudio
cups-daemon:
 3568 /usr/sbin/cupsd
dbus:
 2822 /bin/dbus-daemon
 3477 /bin/dbus-daemon
 2385 /bin/dbus-daemon
 2836 /bin/dbus-daemon
 507 /bin/dbus-daemon

These are the init scripts:
service sudo restart
service cups-browsed restart
service samba-ad-dc restart
service smbd restart
service samba restart
service nmbd restart
service mdm restart
service pulseaudio restart
service cups restart
service dbus restart

These processes do not seem to have an associated init script to restart them:
udisks2:
 3162 /usr/lib/udisks2/udisksd
policykit-1:
 918 /usr/lib/policykit-1/polkitd
modemmanager:
 783 /usr/sbin/ModemManager
blueman:
 3255 /usr/bin/blueman-applet
network-manager:
 912 /usr/sbin/NetworkManager
mate-polkit:amd64:
 3257 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/polkit-mate-authentication-agent-1
xserver-xorg-core:
 1498 /usr/bin/Xorg
gvfs-daemons:
 3143 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-udisks2-volume-monitor
 3554 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-metadata
 3321 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-trash
mate-keyring:
 2996 /usr/bin/mate-keyring-daemon
caja:
 3236 /usr/bin/caja
system-tools-backends:
 3487 /usr/sbin/system-tools-backends
gvfs-backends:
 3214 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-mtp-volume-monitor
 3203 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-afc-volume-monitor
 3208 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor
marco:
 3015 /usr/bin/marco
upower:
 3272 /usr/lib/upower/upowerd
mintupdate:
 3821 /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/mintUpdate.py
mate-screensaver:
 3258 /usr/bin/mate-screensaver
at-spi2-core:
 3472 /usr/lib/at-spi2-core/at-spi-bus-launcher
dnsmasq-base:
 2142 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq
 3543 /usr/sbin/dnsmasq
mate-bluetooth:
 3261 /usr/bin/mate-bluetooth-applet
consolekit:
 2476 /usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon
gvfs-fuse:
 3023 /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-fuse
google-chrome-stable:
 3646 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3859 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3642 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3683 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3675 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3666 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3612 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3691 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 5706 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3694 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3601 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3698 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3621 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3708 /opt/google/chrome/chrome
 3616 /opt/google/chrome/nacl_helper
mate-terminal:
 3891 /usr/bin/mate-terminal
mate-settings-daemon-pulse:
 2987 /usr/bin/mate-settings-daemon
system-config-printer-gnome:
 3252 /usr/share/system-config-printer/applet.py
mate-session-manager:
 2547 /usr/bin/mate-session
isc-dhcp-client:
 2024 /sbin/dhclient
mintmenu:
 3049 /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintMenu/mintMenu.py
mate-media-pulse:
 3259 /usr/bin/mate-volume-control-applet
network-manager-gnome:
 3248 /usr/bin/nm-applet
 3263 /usr/bin/nm-applet
mate-panel:
 3055 /usr/lib/mate-panel/clock-applet
 3032 /usr/bin/mate-panel
 3051 /usr/lib/mate-panel/wnck-applet
login:
 3909 /bin/su
mate-power-manager:
 3244 /usr/bin/mate-power-manager

From this output we can see what processes can be restarted, along the related init script. Additionally it shows what processes need also restarting, but lack the related script.

Checkrestart status

The utility does what it should do. However, it is limited to Debian based systems and the code contains a lot of “to do” items. If you are evaluating software components in this article, you definitely want to read more about Needrestart.

Needrestart

Another utility is needrestart. Like checkrestart it determines what processes need a restart, after running a software upgrade. It is part of the package with the same name and written in Perl. It seems to be well-maintained and supports newer technologies like containers (LXC, Docker). The tool hooks into the update process, so for example it can restart services after running a “dpkg upgrade”. It is also possible to run it manually, with specifically the mode to list processes only, provide the option to do restarting (interactively) per process, or do them all automatically.

Support for package managers

Needrestart supports a few package managers out of the box:

• DPKG
• Pacman
• RPM

Needrestart restart uses features of the package manager to determine which related package, or daemon needs a restart. It does so by looking for the related startup script. In the case of systems using DPKG, it actually uses some intelligence from the previously mentioned checkrestart utility. For RPM it leverages the rpmquery utility, for pacman the pacman utility itself.

Installation

Debian / Ubuntu

apt install needrestart

Fedora

For our Fedora system we used the following steps to get the tool working. Instead of using Git, you might use a custom package to simplify the handling of dependencies. As we simply use it for testing on our Fedora 21 test server, we install the dependencies and run it from the root home directory.

# cd /root
# yum -y -d1 install git perl-Module-ScanDeps perl-Proc-ProcessTable perl-Sort-Naturally perl-Term-ProgressBar-Simple perl-Module-Find.noarch perl-ExtUtils-MakeMaker.noarch
# git clone https://github.com/liske/needrestart
# cp /root/needrestart/needrestart.conf /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf
# mkdir /etc/needrestart/hook.d
# cp /root/needrestart/ex/hooks/* /etc/needrestart/hook.d
# perl -I /root/needrestart/perl/lib ./needrestart -r l</pre>

Configuration of Needrestart

By default, not much configuration is needed for this utility. It works great out of the box. When adjustments are needed for the behavior of the tool, this can be done via the configuration file  /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf. Some of options that are found in the configuration file, can also be adjusted via the command line (e.g. type of operation).

So what is there to configure? The default restarting mode, what processes should be ignored etc. This way you can change the utility to do its job, while avoiding restarting unwanted parts of the system.

Needrestart in action

So after running security updates, we will run needrestart. In this example, we use it on a Fedora system. Just after applying hundreds of software patches, we run the tool in list mode (-r l):

Needrestart found several processes which needed a restart. The tool even checks if the latest installed kernel is running and discovered an outdated kernel being active. In this case a full system restart would even be better.

Which one to use?

After reviewing them both, go for the needrestart utility. It works on multiple Linux based systems, is well-maintained, has support for newer technologies and does it job very well. As always, we encourage testing first on non-production systems.

Found even a better tool to handle this job? Let it know!