workflow-telemetry-action: Error: EACCES: permission denied

[bschilder]

Hi there, thanks for the awesome action!
I'm currently using it as part of the rworkfows action and one of my users reported an error.

• workflow-telemetry-action: Error: EACCES: permission denied neurogenomics/rworkflows#128

Any insights you might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated! @rwxdash @suleymanbarman

1. Bug description

An error arises during the telemetry step in the rworkflows action.

Console output

https://github.com/tempbioc/parody/actions/runs/7700556648/job/20984649706

Run runforesight/workflow-telemetry-action@v1
  with:
    github_token: ***
    comment_on_pr: false
    metric_frequency: 5
    proc_trace_min_duration: -1
    proc_trace_sys_enable: false
    proc_trace_chart_show: true
    proc_trace_chart_max_count: 100
    proc_trace_table_show: false
    job_summary: true
    theme: light
/usr/bin/docker exec  6c2e97cc4a283c72fe7bf139a67a7da38acadf3432c0c132475639d0cd[27](https://github.com/tempbioc/parody/actions/runs/7700556648/job/20984649706#step:4:28)aae2 sh -c "cat /etc/*release | grep ^ID"
[Workflow Telemetry] Initializing ...
[Workflow Telemetry] Starting step tracer ...
[Workflow Telemetry] Started step tracer
[Workflow Telemetry] Starting stat collector ...
[Workflow Telemetry] Started stat collector
[Workflow Telemetry] Starting process tracer ...
[Workflow Telemetry] Using proc_tracer_ubuntu-22
Error: [Workflow Telemetry] Unable to start process tracer
Error: [Workflow Telemetry] Error
Error: Error: EACCES: permission denied, open '/__w/_temp/_runner_file_commands/save_state_ac4bd7c5-921e-48b3-b0[29](https://github.com/tempbioc/parody/actions/runs/7700556648/job/20984649706#step:4:30)-d0cb99c12220'
[Workflow Telemetry] Initialization completed
Run echo "RGL_USE_NULL=TRUE" >> $GITHUB_ENV
/__w/_temp/06874ccf-cdc5-4e06-aed4-f0e66a4aa052.sh: line 1: /__w/_temp/_runner_file_commands/set_env_1542[31](https://github.com/tempbioc/parody/actions/runs/7700556648/job/20984649706#step:4:32)dd-e084-4f24-9ded-f0a82f647c04: Permission denied
/__w/_temp/06874ccf-cdc5-4e06-aed4-f0e66a4aa052.sh: line 2: /__w/_temp/_runner_file_commands/set_env_15[42](https://github.com/tempbioc/parody/actions/runs/7700556648/job/20984649706#step:4:44)31dd-e084-4f24-9ded-f0a82f647c04: Permission denied
/__w/_temp/06874ccf-cdc5-4e06-aed4-f0e66a4aa052.sh: line 3: /__w/_temp/_runner_file_commands/set_env_154231dd-e084-4f24-9ded-f0a82f647c04: Permission denied
/__w/_temp/06874ccf-cdc5-4e06-aed4-f0e66a4aa052.sh: line 4: /__w/_temp/_runner_file_commands/set_env_154231dd-e084-4f24-9ded-f0a82f647c04: Permission denied
/__w/_temp/06874ccf-cdc5-4e06-aed4-f0e66a4aa052.sh: line 5: /__w/_temp/_runner_file_commands/set_env_154231dd-e084-4f24-9ded-f0a82f647c04: Permission denied
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

Expected behaviour

Telemetry actions runs all the way through and produces reports.

2. Reproducible example

https://github.com/tempbioc/parody/actions/runs/7700556648/workflow

Potentially related issues

• Running the action in a container fails  #44

[rwxdash]

Hey @bschilder, thank you for raising an issue.

At a glance, the workflow with the problem seems to be using a container to run the job. Since the workflow-telemetry-action uses an eBPF program (called proc_tracer_ubuntu-22 in this case) and it would have to be run with sudo, it would need security privileges to run in a container.

As you pointed out (#44), the solution would be to run the container with privileged: true and mount the debugfs syscalls, since it probably won't be available within a container by default.

It does look like GitHub Action allows these to be set in the jobs.<job_id>.container.options. See: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-jobs/running-jobs-in-a-container#setting-container-resource-options

Hope this clarifies some things and helps you resolve the issue.

Bests.

[bschilder]

Thanks so much for the rapid and helpful reply! I'll try this out and let you know how it goes!

[serkan-ozal]

Hi @bschilder,

Had you a chance to try solution suggested by @rwxdash?