I can't get any information or help about an init process called 'scip' which has a log /var/log/upstart/scip.log

Question

My laptop is running Ubuntu 14.04 and I have strange WiFi issues. In looking at /var/log/syslog I see a rapidly repeating error about a crashing init called scip:

Jul 29 09:03:17 ppzuav-UltraPro kernel: [ 3293.753024] init: scip main process ended, respawning

I read about upstart being a service manager I tried using service scip stop then status:

root@ppzuav-UltraPro:/var/log# service scip status
scip stop/waiting

Trying to RTFM myself but I really get zero info on a process called 'scip' so hopefully others can learn from the info in the answer. I Googled many permutations of the above many times and get zero useful hits which I thought was odd. Just nothing about scip init failing or what it is. Am I the only person to have this?

No 'scip' found with grep 'scip' /etc/init.d/*

I dig more and find a log file called /var/log/upstart/scip.log with the contents of the log is very large > 100M (infinitely repeating it seems):

root@ppzuav-UltraPro:/var/log/upstart# tail -f scip.log
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1
vm.swappiness = 0
net.core.rmem_max = 1000000
net.core.wmem_max = 1000000
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra = 0

I am connected to a WiFi provider that has stats on my connection. The uplink is many times larger than the downlink. However I am not running any servers I'm aware of or file sharing services etc (that I know of).

I did find some info on upstart but still nothing, even here, on this 'scip' process. Please help. What is it? Why is my laptop sending so much data and where? What's that data in the scip.log mean?

New Additional information. Contents of /etc/init/scip.conf:

# description "Start sysctl at boot"

description "sysctl"

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [016]

console log

respawn
respawn limit unlimited

exec /sbin/sysctl -p
/etc/init/scip.conf (END)

Also, I learned about (here in a search) a tool called "IPTraf" which is helpful. For just a few minutes I see Incoming rates: 84.6 packets/sec and Outgoing rates: 46.6 packets/sec now at least I can see and dig around on wlan2 (WiFi to an Internet provider "Cruisers Wifi Mount Harmon").

*Extra info, I am sharing the wlan2 connection via Ethernet to a small device TPLink TL-WR702N to let other devices get Internet. I set that up with online help (probably ask ubuntu) for sharing WiFi. Essentially setup an Ethernet network as Shared to other computers. The only other devices on this shared network is an iPhone that's currently downloading an iOS update. I still can not account for the high upload rate (Outgoing).

Contents of my /etc/sysctl.conf file:

ppzuav@ppzuav-UltraPro:~$ sudo cat /etc/sysctl.conf
#
# /etc/sysctl.conf - Configuration file for setting system variables
# See /etc/sysctl.d/ for additional system variables
# See sysctl.conf (5) for information.
#

#kernel.domainname = example.com

# Uncomment the following to stop low-level messages on console
#kernel.printk = 3 4 1 3

##############################################################3
# Functions previously found in netbase
#

# Uncomment the next two lines to enable Spoof protection (reverse-path filter)
# Turn on Source Address Verification in all interfaces to
# prevent some spoofing attacks
#net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter=1
#net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter=1

# Uncomment the next line to enable TCP/IP SYN cookies
# See http://lwn.net/Articles/277146/
# Note: This may impact IPv6 TCP sessions too
#net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies=1

# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4
#net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv6
#  Enabling this option disables Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
#  based on Router Advertisements for this host
#net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1


###################################################################
# Additional settings - these settings can improve the network
# security of the host and prevent against some network attacks
# including spoofing attacks and man in the middle attacks through
# redirection. Some network environments, however, require that these
# settings are disabled so review and enable them as needed.
#
# Do not accept ICMP redirects (prevent MITM attacks)
#net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_redirects = 0
#net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_redirects = 0
# _or_
# Accept ICMP redirects only for gateways listed in our default
# gateway list (enabled by default)
# net.ipv4.conf.all.secure_redirects = 1
#
# Do not send ICMP redirects (we are not a router)
#net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects = 0
#
# Do not accept IP source route packets (we are not a router)
#net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_source_route = 0
#net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_source_route = 0
#
# Log Martian Packets
#net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians = 1
#
vm.swappiness=0
# Updates for Gnu Radio
net.core.rmem_max = 1000000
net.core.wmem_max = 1000000
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648

# below is to disable IPV6 for speed
net.ipv6.conf.all.accept_ra = 0
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

Cheers,

Answer 1

The scip upstart job:

This thing really looks like somebody (you?) tried to create a new Upstart configuration file by copying an existing one and then forgot about it half-way through. The following lines in /etc/sysctl.conf, along with the respawn limit unlimited setting in the Upstart job configuration, also make me wonder if somebody has intentionally created this job to avoid having to run sudo sysctl -p manually every time they update the /etc/sysctl.conf file:

# Updates for Gnu Radio
net.core.rmem_max = 1000000
net.core.wmem_max = 1000000
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648

Please check if the file is used by any process using dpkg --search /etc/init/scip.conf. If no matches are returned then you may safely remove the file, otherwise you may have just found the package in your system that is causing us trouble…

The massive upload problem:

I haven't heard of iptraf yet (but it looks cool so I'll take a closer look when there is time), so I'm just going to suggest a tool called iftop to you instead.

To get a clue about which program is uploading the data try this:

1. Install iftop: sudo apt-get install iftop
2. Run iftop with source port display enabled: sudo iftop -P -n -i wlan2
   The switch -P tells iftop to display the port number additionally to the source IP address, the -n switch tells it not to resolve host names and the -i wlan2 switch tells it which network interface it should listen to.
3. Determine the source IP address and port (first column) of some connection that you think might be at fault.
4. Run sudo ss --tcp --udp --all -p src '<ip address>:<port>' to find out which process is responsible for that connection.

If that doesn't help you could try using iftop or iptraf to check if maybe there is a lot of traffic coming from a connected device.

Answer 2

For me this was happening because I attempted to manually disable ipv6 by adding the lines

   net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
   net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
   net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

to my /etc/sysctl.conf.