"PrivateNetwork=yes" systemd statement causes "Failed to initialize thermal events"

[bubbleguuum]

PrivateNetwork=yes in irqbalance.service causes this failure to initialize thermal:

Jul 15 11:43:14 p72 systemd[1]: Started irqbalance daemon.
Jul 15 11:43:14 p72 irqbalance[11518]: thermal: failed to receive messages.
Jul 15 11:43:14 p72 irqbalance[11518]: Failed to initialize thermal events.

Remove that statement and that error is gone.

Observed on current openSUSE Tumbleweed (kernel 6.9.9) with irqbalance 1.9.4.0.git+f8b8cdd

[nhorman]

Its not an error, its a warning, and can be safely ignored.

It occurs because the netlink family that handles thermal events is coded such that it only responds to messages in the init network namespace. When you set PrivateNetwork=true, you enter a private network namespace, and thermal control in the kernel becomes unresponsive, leading to the above.

If you want to do thermal control, you need to run irqbalance in the init namespace

[bubbleguuum]

Thank yo for your reply. So if I understand correctly, if you want thermal control you need to edit the service to either remove the PrivateNetwork line or change it to PrivateNetwork=no ? Assuming that's the case, how are users supposed to know that ? Also, the logged message really looks like an error rather than a warning or info message.

[nhorman]

correct, or alternatively just not set PrivateNetwork at all, as =no is the default. As to how to understand that, the only way I see right now is to read the code. PR's to update docs would be welcome