quickwit-oss/quickwit · error

registering a signal handler for SIGTERM should not fail

Error message

registering a signal handler for SIGTERM should not fail

What it means

In listen_sigterm, the code registers a tokio unix signal handler for SIGTERM. Registration fails only if the signal number is out of range or signals cannot be registered; the expect asserts this cannot happen because a server that cannot catch SIGTERM cannot drain in-flight indexing before being killed.

Source

Thrown at quickwit/quickwit-cli/src/service.rs:78

    ctrl_c().await;
    println!(
        "{} Graceful shutdown initiated. Waiting for ingested data to be indexed. This may take a \
         few minutes. Press Ctrl+C again to force shutdown.",
        "❢".color(BLUE_COLOR)
    );
    tokio::spawn(async {
        ctrl_c().await;
        println!(
            "{} Quickwit was forcefully shut down. Some data might not have been indexed.",
            "✘".color(RED_COLOR)
        );
        std::process::exit(1);
    });
}

async fn listen_sigterm() {
    signal::unix::signal(signal::unix::SignalKind::terminate())
        .expect("registering a signal handler for SIGTERM should not fail")
        .recv()
        .await;
    info!("SIGTERM received");
}

async fn listen_sighup() {
    let mut sighup = signal::unix::signal(signal::unix::SignalKind::hangup())
        .expect("registering a signal handler for SIGHUP should not fail");

    while sighup.recv().await.is_some() {
        info!("SIGHUP received");
        reload_tls_cert();
    }
}

impl RunCliCommand {
    pub fn parse_cli_args(mut matches: ArgMatches) -> anyhow::Result<Self> {
        let config_uri = matches

View on GitHub (pinned to a39730c5cd)

Solutions

1. Deploy quickwit under a normal init/container runtime that permits signal registration.
2. Allow the rt_sigaction syscall in seccomp/AppArmor profiles.
3. Replace the expect with graceful error handling that logs and falls back to default termination behavior.

Example fix

// before
signal::unix::signal(signal::unix::SignalKind::terminate())
    .expect("registering a signal handler for SIGTERM should not fail")
// after
let mut sigterm = signal::unix::signal(signal::unix::SignalKind::terminate())
    .context("failed to register SIGTERM handler")?;

let mut sigterm = signal::unix::signal(signal::unix::SignalKind::terminate())
    .map_err(|err| anyhow::anyhow!("SIGTERM handler registration failed: {err}"))?;

When it happens

Trigger: signal::unix::signal(SignalKind::terminate()) returning Err while executing the quickwit serve command on Unix — only when signal handler registration is blocked by the OS.

Common situations: Hardened containers with seccomp filters stripping rt_sigaction; unusual init setups with signal masks that leak SIGTERM to blocked; running on platforms where unix signal APIs are unavailable (would not compile).

Understand the failure class

Background: "unsupported platform" / "not supported on this platform" errors: what they mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 47 libraries.

Related errors

• registering a signal handler for SIGINT should not fail
• registering a signal handler for SIGHUP should not fail
• Failed to create `OffsetDateTime` from split create timestam
• Failed to create `OffsetDateTime` from split update timestam
• node not found in pending

AI-assisted analysis of quickwit-oss/quickwit@a39730c5cd (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ffa9d39197a04215. Report an issue: GitHub.