Workaround for Docker with Erlang/OTP 21.3

Just a quick heads up: There seems to be a bug in Erlang/OTP 21.3, which can cause some errors when making http requests. If you’re using the official Elixir images that use Erlang/OTP 21 it might affect your app, because they got rebuilt with the latest version that contains the bug.

The quickest workaround is to instead of using FROM elixir:1.7.4 in your Dockerfile, replicate the elixir image layer and point it to an earlier image, for example 21.2.7:

FROM erlang:21.2.7

# elixir expects utf8.
ENV ELIXIR_VERSION="v1.7.4" \
	LANG=C.UTF-8

RUN set -xe \
	&& ELIXIR_DOWNLOAD_URL="https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/archive/${ELIXIR_VERSION}.tar.gz" \
	&& ELIXIR_DOWNLOAD_SHA256="c7c87983e03a1dcf20078141a22355e88dadb26b53d3f3f98b9a9268687f9e20" \
	&& curl -fSL -o elixir-src.tar.gz $ELIXIR_DOWNLOAD_URL \
	&& echo "$ELIXIR_DOWNLOAD_SHA256  elixir-src.tar.gz" | sha256sum -c - \
	&& mkdir -p /usr/local/src/elixir \
	&& tar -xzC /usr/local/src/elixir --strip-components=1 -f elixir-src.tar.gz \
	&& rm elixir-src.tar.gz \
	&& cd /usr/local/src/elixir \
	&& make install clean

CMD ["iex"]

Posting it here, because I know it affected more than just myself, might save some of you some time.

13 Likes

Thanks - I got bit by this too. If you’re using Elixir 1.8.1, I made an image over here: https://hub.docker.com/r/tomtaylor/elixir (using this Dockerfile: https://github.com/poplarhq/elixir-docker-image)

2 Likes

This is part of why treating specific Docker image tags as mutable is so dangerous. When I’m in front of a computer I can check if I still have the correct SHA256 image checksums for the prior version that used OTP 21.2.x, because I pin them in my FROM lines after experiences similar to this.

2 Likes

The historical version of the official image that included OTP 21.2.6 can be obtained by referring to this image syntax:

elixir:1.8.1-alpine@sha256:f6a0647245a467f7affee2e635341eb40d4b9dee88467f3b14a30707dbd21308

This syntax is compatible with, among others, docker pull, docker run, FROM in a Dockerfile, and Kubernetes manifests. The checksum is output whenever you pull an image via the normal docker pull CLI, and is also available after the fact via docker inspect $imageID under the RepoDigests key.

You can bulk check your image tags and digests like this, which may catch historical copies that were untagged by a subsequent pull:

docker images elixir -q | xargs -n1 docker inspect | jq ".[] | { tag: .RepoTags[0], digest: .RepoDigests[0] }"
10 Likes

Oh man, this was driving me crazy for days. Thanks.

1 Like

Wir seeing errors like

2019-03-19T08:54:39+00:00 app[postgres.9192]: [DATABASE] [8-1]  sql_error_code = 00000 LOG:  PID 9135 in cancel request did not match any process
2019-03-19T08:54:40+00:00 app[postgres.9105]: [DATABASE] [9-1]  sql_error_code = 08P01 LOG:  SSL error: tlsv1 alert internal error

Seems to be the bug which is decribed here

1 Like

Looks like OTP 21.3.1 was released but I can’t find release notes aside from the ones saying the ssl app was changed. I might be blind though :thinking:

Judging from the commit log though, this was fixed? Has somebody tried their luck with 21.3.1?

$ git log --oneline OTP-21.3..OTP-21.3.1
a4f71b669a (tag: OTP-21.3.1, origin/maint-21) Updated OTP version
48eedeb93d Prepare release
18940986f9 Merge branch 'ingela/ssl/recv-timeout-bug/ERL-884/ERL-883/OTP-14701' into maint-21
7b4f3319aa Merge branch 'ingela/ssl/transport-transparance/ERL-861/OTP-15679' into maint-21
d4266651c5 Merge branch 'rickard/erl_call/ERL-881/OTP-15676' into maint-21
543ca376a9 Add smoke test for erl_call
f85c6c84fa Add new api functions to ei_fake_prog
adf61f3cbf Fix timeout value when waiting for emulator start
e645b6b4a5 Fix initialization of erl_call
18e8014fe2 ssl: Cancel recv timer in all places
5a7cfb2d57 ssl: Fix transport transparancy
1 Like

You need to look at either the erlang-questions or erlang-announce mailing list. Or you can just check here: OTP Versions Tree.

2 Likes

And I have just avoided days of frustration thanks to @nietaki.
Legend.

1 Like