[receiver/hostmetrics] Scraping process metrics gives parent PID read error on Linux

[BinaryFissionGames]

What happened?

Description

When scraping process metrics on linux, an error indicating that an invalid PID (0) is being read.
This fills the logs on each scrape with error logs, that may drown out other important logs.

Steps to Reproduce

Scrape process metrics as root

Expected Result

No error is logged

Actual Result

Error message about error reading parent PID for systemd (PID = 0)

Collector version

v0.61.0

Environment information

OS: Debian 11 (bullseye)

OpenTelemetry Collector configuration

receivers:
  hostmetrics/host__source0:
    collection_interval: 60s
    scrapers:
      filesystem:
      load:
      memory:
      network:
      paging:
      process:
        mute_process_name_error: true

exporters:
  logging:

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers:
        - hostmetrics
      exporters:
        - logging

Log output

{"level":"error","ts":"2022-10-03T17:44:51.239Z","caller":"scraperhelper/scrapercontroller.go:197","msg":"Error scraping metrics","kind":"receiver","name":"hostmetrics/host__source0","pipeline":"metrics","error":"error reading parent pid for process \"systemd\" (pid 1): invalid pid 0","scraper":"process","stacktrace":"go.opentelemetry.io/collector/receiver/scraperhelper.(*controller).scrapeMetricsAndReport\n\t/home/runner/go/pkg/mod/go.opentelemetry.io/collector@v0.61.0/receiver/scraperhelper/scrapercontroller.go:197\ngo.opentelemetry.io/collector/receiver/scraperhelper.(*controller).startScraping.func1\n\t/home/runner/go/pkg/mod/go.opentelemetry.io/collector@v0.61.0/receiver/scraperhelper/scrapercontroller.go:172"}

Additional context

No response

[github-actions]

Pinging code owners: @dmitryax. See Adding Labels via Comments if you do not have permissions to add labels yourself.

[github-actions]

This issue has been inactive for 60 days. It will be closed in 60 days if there is no activity. To ping code owners by adding a component label, see Adding Labels via Comments, or if you are unsure of which component this issue relates to, please ping @open-telemetry/collector-contrib-triagers. If this issue is still relevant, please ping the code owners or leave a comment explaining why it is still relevant. Otherwise, please close it.

Pinging code owners:

• receiver/hostmetrics: @dmitryax

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[alexchowle]

This is happening in 0.60.0, too. Nothing special with the config and is just the collector running as native process. I get lots of "error reading process name for pid #: readlink /proc/#/exe: no such file or directory" (where # is a given low numbered PID).

[alexchowle]

Now, having added "mute_process_name_error: true" to the config I have "... unknown userid xxxxxx" messages instead, where xxxxxx is a number

[alexchowle]

Heh. I've traced this all the way through the dependency tree. The underlying "os/user" package is failing a UID lookup by returning an error if the user does not exist in "/etc/passwd" file.

Should all process scrapes fail because a UID can't be resolved?

[alexchowle]

Raised as separate issue #17187

[prashant-shahi]

This issue seems to exist in v0.79.x as well.

@dmitryax I would really appreciate any updates on this issue.

[github-actions]

This issue has been inactive for 60 days. It will be closed in 60 days if there is no activity. To ping code owners by adding a component label, see Adding Labels via Comments, or if you are unsure of which component this issue relates to, please ping @open-telemetry/collector-contrib-triagers. If this issue is still relevant, please ping the code owners or leave a comment explaining why it is still relevant. Otherwise, please close it.

Pinging code owners:

• receiver/hostmetrics: @dmitryax

See Adding Labels via Comments if you do not have permissions to add labels yourself.

[github-actions]

This issue has been closed as inactive because it has been stale for 120 days with no activity.