pre-built binaries crashing on Alpine ARM 32bit

hardillb commented 1 year ago

SerialPort Bindings Version

11.0.3 & 12.0.1

Node Version

16.20.1

Electron Version

No response

Platform

Alpine Docker container on Rasperry Pi Buster

Architecture

ARM

Hardware or chipset of serialport

NA

What steps will reproduce the bug?

clone this repo (Docker file and minimal testcase) https://github.com/hardillb/node-serial-docker-test
build docker container on Arm Linux (e.g. raspberry pi) docker build -t node-serial-docker-test
create virtual serial port with socat sudo socat -d -d pty,rawer,echo=0,link=/dev/ttyUSB0 pty,rawer,echo=0,link=/dev/ttyUSB1
start a shell in the container with docker run -v /dev:/dev -it --entrypoint /bin/sh --ulimit core=-1 --privileged node-serial-docker-test
run node index.js will generate core file

Sample core file provided

core.gz

What happens?

Crashes on startup

What should have happened?

Not crash trying to open a port

Additional information

running npm run rebuild in the node_modules/@serialport/bindings-cpp fixes the problem which implies it's the pre-built binaries that are the problem.

re: https://github.com/node-red/node-red-nodes/issues/1027

We need to run on 11.0.x as we need to maintain NodeJS 14 support (for a little while longer)

GazHank commented 1 year ago

hi @hardillb are you getting accidentally updated to a version that is incompatible with your version of node?

As far as I understand you should be able to continue with the older version of the package until you are able to update node from version 14. Other than losing support I don't think there are any known issues which should impact you in the short term if you need to stick on node 14 for a short while

hardillb commented 1 year ago

@GazHank

I'm testing (and the supplied test case uses) NodeJS 16 and installing serialport v11.0.1 (bindings-cpp v11.0.3) which was tagged on github 3 days ago, that version should be good, but I've just tested with version v12.0.0 (bindings-cpp v12.0.1) tagged at the same time and it fails the same way

For v12.0.0 package.json says

"engines": {
    "node": ">=16.0.0"
  },

for v11.0.1

"engines": {
    "node": ">=12.0.0"
  },

So both versions should work on Node 16

GazHank commented 1 year ago

doh! <I've only been able to review this on my mobile, so sorry if I'm mistaken>

The alpine binaries are built using prebuildify (which only uses LTS releases), so it looks like any binaries will drop support soon as a node version leaves LTS, even if the underlying code is still compatible and can be build from source.

@hardillb I think your analysis is correct and it is an issue with the pre-build binaries. For now you can either pin an earlier binary version, or build from source

@reconbot keen to get your thoughts... it looks like holding out support for older versions of nodejs is getting harder, perhaps we need to pencil in a release for around 2023-09-11 to drop node 16, to avoid similar issues?

hardillb commented 1 year ago

One other note, the current system doesn't appear to support npm rebuild which should normally rebuild any binary components, where as for @serialport/bindings-cpp you have to run npm run rebuild actually in it's directory (where as npm rebuild can do all modules in the node_modules dir). This is a break from expected normal behaviour for nodes with binary components.

alexojegu commented 9 months ago

Same trouble here.

Hi @GazHank, from prebuildify usage:

It's possible to use custom images with e.g. -i my-namespace/my-image.

And for ARM they are using images from dockcross where I can see dockcross/linux-armv7l-musl. Could this image be added to the GitHub Actions workflow?

If I understood it correctly it would simply change:

- name: linux-arm
     os: ubuntu-latest
     command: prebuildify-cross
     args: -i linux-arm64-lts -i linux-armv7 -i linux-armv6

By:

- name: linux-arm
     os: ubuntu-latest
     command: prebuildify-cross
     args: -i linux-arm64-lts -i linux-armv7 -i linux-armv6 -i dockcross/linux-armv7l-musl

For me this would be enough, but there is also an image for armv6-musl if anyone might be interested.

PS: Okay, I guess based on that image you would have to make a Dockerfile with the configuration used by prebuildify.

SamuelToh commented 2 months ago

@hardillb your workaround works for me.

I have a similar setup doing,

node 16,
pi on arm architecture
running Buster linux
application sits in an alphine docker container.
my application uses the 12.0.0 package and it was seg faulting on me during init/port open stage.

running npm run rebuild seems to work for me!

@hardillb how did you found out? Keen to learn.

serialport / bindings-cpp