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[STACKED on #968] fix(vmm): retain the serial boot delimiter at the cap - #970

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codex/fix-vmm-serial-log-cap
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[STACKED on #968] fix(vmm): retain the serial boot delimiter at the cap#970
kvinwang wants to merge 4 commits into
masterfrom
codex/fix-vmm-serial-log-cap

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@kvinwang

@kvinwang kvinwang commented Jul 31, 2026

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STACKED PR — merge #968 first.

Problem

Serial-log trimming enforced the byte cap by discarding the boot delimiter together with older output. Consumers could no longer find the boundary between boot attempts after rotation.

Root cause and fix

Trim around and retain the boot delimiter while enforcing the configured maximum size, so bounded logs remain parseable.

Implementation

The branch records the following focused implementation work:

  • test(vmm): cover serial rotation boundaries
  • test(vmm): read serial default through config
  • fix(vmm): retain serial boot delimiter at cap

Changed paths:

  • dstack/vmm/src/app.rs

Scope

This PR addresses one logical vmm finding. It intentionally excludes the acceptance-test infrastructure from #841 and unrelated product fixes from #840.

Dependency and merge order

Verification

  • git diff --check origin/codex/fix-vmm-restart-policy..origin/codex/fix-vmm-serial-log-cap: passed.
  • The declared base was verified as an ancestor of the PR head.
  • Focused compile/check verification was run for the changed component where applicable; non-Rust packaging or configuration changes were reviewed against their exact branch delta.

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings July 31, 2026 03:33

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Copilot was unable to review this pull request because the user who requested the review has reached their quota limit.

Base automatically changed from codex/fix-vmm-restart-policy to master August 6, 2026 03:20
@kvinwang
kvinwang force-pushed the codex/fix-vmm-serial-log-cap branch from 93b8593 to 4ff2c0c Compare August 6, 2026 03:23
The trimming logic grew inline inside `rotate_serial_log`: it materialized
the front-trimmed buffer, scanned it for a boot separator, then scanned the
original buffer again and rebuilt from scratch when the separator was gone.
Two scans, a discarded allocation, and four levels of nesting for what is a
single range calculation.

Extract `trim_serial_history`, which resolves the retained range in one
`rposition` and returns a `Cow` so the common front-trim path borrows.

This also fixes a byte-duplication bug the inline version could produce. The
tail offset was measured from the end of the buffer while the header was
sliced from its own position, so the two ranges could overlap. When the
previous boot ends in an unterminated line, the front trim lands on the
newest separator's own leading newline: the separator misses surviving by one
byte, the splice path runs, and the tail re-includes a fragment of the header:

    \n===== boot @ 2026-01-02T00:00:00Z =====\n\noot @ 2026-01-02T00:00:00Z =====\n\nBBB...

Serial logs routinely end without a trailing newline (panic, abrupt
poweroff), so this is reachable in practice. Clamping the tail offset to the
header end removes the overlap.

Also share `BOOT_SEPARATOR_PREFIX` between the writer and the trimmer. The
separator format was duplicated as a literal in three places, and a drift
would have disabled trimming silently.

The `max_bytes > 0` guard is dropped: `header.len() <= max_bytes` already
rejects a zero cap, since a header is never empty.

Tests: split the single case-matrix test into focused cases, drop the
`DSTACK_SERIAL_ROW` stdout markers (nothing in the tree consumes them), and
move the config-default assertion out of the rotation test. Add a sweep over
pad and boot-body sizes covering the duplication regression, plus the
header-does-not-fit and truncated-header boundaries.
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2 participants