Of the two ways node-pty fails, only one is catchable. A missing module throws
MODULE_NOT_FOUND. A module built against the wrong libc or Node ABI is refused by
the dynamic loader, and in the worst case takes the process down before any handler
exists — that is #9902, which crashed the desktop app on Ubuntu 20.04 before a
window appeared. There was no libc or ABI precondition anywhere in the tree.
So orcad now proves the load in a CHILD process, from main.ts, before anything
requires node-pty. Whatever the child does — throw, abort, die on a signal — is data
rather than our own death, and the operator gets a sentence naming the host's libc,
Node ABI and prebuild slot plus the command to run. Proven-unloadable exits 78
(EX_CONFIG), so a supervisor does not restart an unequippable host forever. A probe
that never answered is unverifiable, not blocked: refusing to boot on an inconclusive
signal would take down hosts that work.
The child dlopens the file node-pty would have chosen, before requiring the package.
node-pty's loader walks several directories and rethrows only the LAST error, so a
refused binary reads as "Cannot find module ./prebuilds/..." — which sends the
operator to install a module that is already there. It also reports through stdout:
node echoes the whole -e source above a stack trace, and matching tokens against
stderr made the probe's own source text answer for the verdict.
Verdicts reach clients as a terminal_unavailable degradation alongside the existing
browser_unavailable one, through the same cause-registry shape. degradations[].code
is now an open vocabulary; clients already render only `message`.
Prebuilds are compiled from PATCHED sources — the patch IS the glibc-floor fix, so an
upstream tarball reproduces #9902 — into linux-{x64,arm64}-{glibc,musl} and
darwin-{x64,arm64} slots. libc is in the slot name because node-pty's loader falls
back to prebuilds/<platform>-<arch> and cannot tell glibc from musl. orcad installs
the matching slot at boot, so a host with no compiler serves terminals.
The relay's five pure toolchain-diagnosis functions moved to a transport-free module
so the Node bundle can reuse them without dragging ssh2 in behind them; the relay
keeps its API by re-export. macOS gets `xcode-select --install` rather than the
cross-distro apt/dnf/pacman/apk menu, every line of which is wrong there.
* fix(linux): restore Ubuntu 20.04 launch by pinning node-pty glibc symbols (#9902)
The bundled node-pty pty.node is compiled from source in release CI on
ubuntu-latest (glibc 2.39). glibc's 2.32-2.34 libpthread/libutil merge
relocated openpty/forkpty (GLIBC_2.34) and pthread_sigmask (GLIBC_2.32)
into libc under new symbol versions, so the from-source build bound to
versions absent on Ubuntu 20.04 (glibc 2.31). The main process imports
node-pty at startup, so the app crashed on launch. pty.node is the sole
blocker (Electron needs GLIBC_2.25; other native modules <= 2.17).
- Patch node-pty: a .symver shim pins the 3 symbols to their pre-merge
version (GLIBC_2.2.5 x64 / GLIBC_2.17 arm64), and Linux-only ldflags
force libutil.so.1/libpthread.so.0 back into DT_NEEDED. Guarded to
Linux; macOS/Windows untouched.
- Add a packaging gate (verify-linux-glibc-floor.cjs, afterPack): reads
each bundled native binary's objdump -p version needs and fails the
Linux build if any strong GLIBC_/GLIBCXX_/CXXABI_ node exceeds stock
Ubuntu 20.04 (glibc 2.31 / GLIBCXX_3.4.28 / CXXABI_1.3.12). Catches
GLIBC_ABI_DT_RELR, rejects GLIBC_PRIVATE, skips weak needs, fail-closed.
- Docs + tests; the lazy sherpa-onnx speech prebuilt (GLIBCXX_3.4.29,
never loaded at launch) is a documented libstdc++-floor exemption.
* fix(linux): assert DT_NEEDED provider deps in the glibc-floor gate
Harden the packaging gate (flagged in adversarial re-eval): the version-floor
check alone can false-pass if the patch's forced `-l:libutil.so.1` ever silently
drops — the pinned openpty@GLIBC_2.2.5 still resolves from libc's compat alias at
build time, but fails to load on Ubuntu 20.04 where openpty/forkpty live only in
libutil. The gate now also asserts that any binary importing openpty/forkpty
keeps libutil.so.1 in DT_NEEDED. Validated on a real symver-pinned .so with
libutil dropped (now fails) vs. present (passes). Documents the recommended
real-host smoke-test follow-up.
Neil