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I'm losing files in /tmp on current Ubuntu (22.04.2), possibly related to virtualisation. Any insights appreciated. This is not a normal cleanup; the file is lost immediately.

I have two systems: a remote VPS, and a local staging system, both running the same software. On both systems, /tmp is not a tmpfs; it's part of the LVM volume group mounted at /.

Apache runs program1 and program2 immediately after each other:

  1. program1 creates a new subdirectory under /tmp, with 2 files: file1 (a Python source file) and file2 (the output of file1). If debug is enabled, file1 is retained; otherwise, it it deleted after creating file2 (with a C library remove)
  2. program2 returns file2 to the client

This all works as expected on the staging system. If debug is enabled, the new /tmp/xxx directory is still on the filesystem, and contains both file1 and file2. If debug isn't enabled, it contains only file2.

On the VPS:

  1. if debug is not enabled, everything works, but there's nothing left under /tmp
  2. if debug is enabled, program2 fails, reporting that file2 doesn't exist

I have 'fixed' the code by removing the C lib remove, so that file1 is always retained, but I don't understand what's going on - it appears that the file remove has somewhere triggered a remove of the entire directory.

EML
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