etcdserver: fix incorrect metrics generated when clients cancel watches

Before this patch, a client which cancels the context for a watch results in the
server generating a `rpctypes.ErrGRPCNoLeader` error that leads the recording of
a gRPC `Unavailable` metric in association with the client watch cancellation.
The metric looks like this:

    grpc_server_handled_total{grpc_code="Unavailable",grpc_method="Watch",grpc_service="etcdserverpb.Watch",grpc_type="bidi_stream"}

So, the watch server has misidentified the error as a server error and then
propagates the mistake to metrics, leading to a false indicator that the leader
has been lost. This false signal then leads to false alerting.

The commit 9c103dd introduced an interceptor which wraps
watch streams requiring a leader, causing those streams to be actively canceled
when leader loss is detected.

However, the error handling code assumes all stream context cancellations are
from the interceptor. This assumption is broken when the context was canceled
because of a client stream cancelation.

The core challenge is lack of information conveyed via `context.Context` which
is shared by both the send and receive sides of the stream handling and is
subject to cancellation by all paths (including the gRPC library itself). If any
piece of the system cancels the shared context, there's no way for a context
consumer to understand who cancelled the context or why.

To solve the ambiguity of the stream interceptor code specifically, this patch
introduces a custom context struct which the interceptor uses to expose a custom
error through the context when the interceptor decides to actively cancel a
stream. Now the consuming side can more safely assume a generic context
cancellation can be propagated as a cancellation, and the server generated
leader error is preserved and propagated normally without any special inference.

When a client cancels the stream, there remains a race in the error handling
code between the send and receive goroutines whereby the underlying gRPC error
is lost in the case where the send path returns and is handled first, but this
issue can be taken separately as no matter which paths wins, we can detect a
generic cancellation.

This is a replacement of etcd-io#11375.

Fixes etcd-io#10289, etcd-io#9725, etcd-io#9576, etcd-io#9166

Author: ironcladlou

api/v3rpc/rpctypes/error.go

@@ -35,6 +35,8 @@ var (
 	ErrGRPCLeaseExist       = status.New(codes.FailedPrecondition, "etcdserver: lease already exists").Err()
 	ErrGRPCLeaseTTLTooLarge = status.New(codes.OutOfRange, "etcdserver: too large lease TTL").Err()
 
+	ErrGRPCWatchCanceled = status.New(codes.Canceled, "etcdserver: watch canceled").Err()
+
 	ErrGRPCMemberExist            = status.New(codes.FailedPrecondition, "etcdserver: member ID already exist").Err()
 	ErrGRPCPeerURLExist           = status.New(codes.FailedPrecondition, "etcdserver: Peer URLs already exists").Err()
 	ErrGRPCMemberNotEnoughStarted = status.New(codes.FailedPrecondition, "etcdserver: re-configuration failed due to not enough started members").Err()

server/etcdserver/api/v3rpc/interceptor.go

@@ -231,8 +231,8 @@ func newStreamInterceptor(s *etcdserver.EtcdServer) grpc.StreamServerInterceptor
 					return rpctypes.ErrGRPCNoLeader
 				}
 
-				cctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(ss.Context())
-				ss = serverStreamWithCtx{ctx: cctx, cancel: &cancel, ServerStream: ss}
+				ctx := newCancellableContext(ss.Context())
+				ss = serverStreamWithCtx{ctx: newCancellableContext(ss.Context()), ServerStream: ss}
 
 				smap.mu.Lock()
 				smap.streams[ss] = struct{}{}
@@ -242,7 +242,8 @@ func newStreamInterceptor(s *etcdserver.EtcdServer) grpc.StreamServerInterceptor
 					smap.mu.Lock()
 					delete(smap.streams, ss)
 					smap.mu.Unlock()
-					cancel()
+					// TODO: investigate whether the reason for cancellation here is useful to know
+					ctx.Cancel(nil)
 				}()
 			}
 		}
@@ -251,10 +252,52 @@ func newStreamInterceptor(s *etcdserver.EtcdServer) grpc.StreamServerInterceptor
 	}
 }
 
+// cancellableContext wraps a context with new cancellable context that allows a
+// specific cancellation error to be preserved and later retrieved using the
+// Context.Err() function. This is so downstream context users can disambiguate
+// the reason for the cancellation which could be from the client (for example)
+// or from this interceptor code.
+type cancellableContext struct {
+	context.Context
+
+	lock         sync.RWMutex
+	cancel       context.CancelFunc
+	cancelReason error
+}
+
+func newCancellableContext(parent context.Context) *cancellableContext {
+	ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(parent)
+	return &cancellableContext{
+		Context: ctx,
+		cancel:  cancel,
+	}
+}
+
+// Cancel stores the cancellation reason and then delegates to context.WithCancel
+// against the parent context.
+func (c *cancellableContext) Cancel(reason error) {
+	c.lock.Lock()
+	c.cancelReason = reason
+	c.lock.Unlock()
+	c.cancel()
+}
+
+// Err will return the preserved cancel reason error if present, and will
+// otherwise return the underlying error from the parent context.
+func (c *cancellableContext) Err() error {
+	c.lock.RLock()
+	defer c.lock.RUnlock()
+	if c.cancelReason != nil {
+		return c.cancelReason
+	}
+	return c.Context.Err()
+}
+
 type serverStreamWithCtx struct {
 	grpc.ServerStream
-	ctx    context.Context
-	cancel *context.CancelFunc
+
+	// ctx is used so that we can preserve a reason for cancellation.
+	ctx *cancellableContext
 }
 
 func (ssc serverStreamWithCtx) Context() context.Context { return ssc.ctx }
@@ -286,7 +329,7 @@ func monitorLeader(s *etcdserver.EtcdServer) *streamsMap {
 					smap.mu.Lock()
 					for ss := range smap.streams {
 						if ssWithCtx, ok := ss.(serverStreamWithCtx); ok {
-							(*ssWithCtx.cancel)()
+							ssWithCtx.ctx.Cancel(rpctypes.ErrGRPCNoLeader)
 							<-ss.Context().Done()
 						}
 					}

server/etcdserver/api/v3rpc/watch.go

@@ -197,15 +197,25 @@ func (ws *watchServer) Watch(stream pb.Watch_WatchServer) (err error) {
 		}
 	}()
 
+	// TODO: There's a race here. When a stream  is closed (e.g. due to a cancellation),
+	// the underlying error (e.g. a gRPC stream error) may be returned and handled
+	// through errc if the recv goroutine finishes before the send goroutine.
+	// When the recv goroutine wins, the stream error is retained. When recv loses
+	// the race, the underlying error is lost (unless the root error is propagated
+	// through Context.Err() which is not always the case (as callers have to decide
+	// to implement a custom context to do so). The stdlib context package builtins
+	// may be insufficient to carry semantically useful errors around and should be
+	// revisited.
 	select {
 	case err = <-errc:
+		if err == context.Canceled {
+			err = rpctypes.ErrGRPCWatchCanceled
+		}
 		close(sws.ctrlStream)
-
 	case <-stream.Context().Done():
 		err = stream.Context().Err()
-		// the only server-side cancellation is noleader for now.
 		if err == context.Canceled {
-			err = rpctypes.ErrGRPCNoLeader
+			err = rpctypes.ErrGRPCWatchCanceled
 		}
 	}
 

tests/e2e/metrics_test.go

@@ -49,6 +49,7 @@ func metricsTest(cx ctlCtx) {
 		{"/metrics", fmt.Sprintf("etcd_mvcc_delete_total 3")},
 		{"/metrics", fmt.Sprintf(`etcd_server_version{server_version="%s"} 1`, version.Version)},
 		{"/metrics", fmt.Sprintf(`etcd_cluster_version{cluster_version="%s"} 1`, version.Cluster(version.Version))},
+		{"/metrics", fmt.Sprintf(`grpc_server_handled_total{grpc_code="Canceled",grpc_method="Watch",grpc_service="etcdserverpb.Watch",grpc_type="bidi_stream"} 6`)},
 		{"/health", `{"health":"true","reason":""}`},
 	} {
 		i++
@@ -58,7 +59,9 @@ func metricsTest(cx ctlCtx) {
 		if err := ctlV3Del(cx, []string{fmt.Sprintf("%d", i)}, 1); err != nil {
 			cx.t.Fatal(err)
 		}
-
+		if err := ctlV3Watch(cx, []string{"k", "--rev", "1"}, []kvExec{{key: "k", val: "v"}}...); err != nil {
+			cx.t.Fatal(err)
+		}
 		if err := cURLGet(cx.epc, cURLReq{endpoint: test.endpoint, expected: test.expected, metricsURLScheme: cx.cfg.metricsURLScheme}); err != nil {
 			cx.t.Fatalf("failed get with curl (%v)", err)
 		}