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[aw-failures] [aw-fix] Smoke CI sandbox setup hard-fails — stale root-owned /tmp/gh-aw/sandbox/firewall blocks AWF (uid=1001) #44242

Description

@github-actions

Fix the orchestrator's stale-sandbox cleanup — delete/reset ownership of /tmp/gh-aw/sandbox/firewall before invoking AWF; a root-owned leftover from a prior run hard-fails every subsequent Smoke CI run on the same runner, and the agent never starts.

Problem

Execute GitHub Copilot CLI aborts during "Generating configuration files":

[ERROR] Fatal error: Error: EACCES: cannot create directory /tmp/gh-aw/sandbox/firewall/logs (running as uid=1001).
  Blocked by: /tmp/gh-aw/sandbox/firewall
  This is typically caused by a previous AWF run leaving root-owned directories.
  The orchestrator must clean up stale directories before invoking AWF.

The follow-up chmod -R a+rX /tmp/gh-aw/sandbox/firewall/logs also fails with Permission denied. Process exits 1.

Affected workflows / runs

  • Smoke CI — run 28924071610 (failure, 07:02 UTC)
  • Smoke CI — run 28923878445 (agent step failed; run cancelled, 06:59 UTC)
  • 2 of the last-6h Smoke CI runs; recurs on runner reuse.

Evidence

audit-diff base=28922334780 (success) vs 28924071610 (fail): failed run token_usage=0 → the model never ran; failure is entirely pre-execution in sandbox/firewall config, with no firewall egress anomalies.

Probable root cause

A previous AWF run creates /tmp/gh-aw/sandbox/firewall (and its logs/) as root. The next run on the same reused runner executes as uid=1001 and cannot create or chmod the logs subdir. The AWF orchestrator does not clean or reset ownership of the stale sandbox tree before writeConfigs.

Proposed remediation

  • Add a pre-flight cleanup in the orchestrator / lock template: sudo rm -rf /tmp/gh-aw/sandbox (or chown to the runtime uid) before AWF runs.
  • Or create the firewall log dir up front as uid=1001, or use a per-run unique path.
  • Make AWF fail-soft with a clear remediation message instead of a fatal stack trace.

Success criteria

  • Two consecutive Smoke CI runs on the same runner pass the "Generating configuration files" step.
  • No EACCES ... /tmp/gh-aw/sandbox/firewall/logs errors over a 24h window.

Parent: #39884 · Auto-failure issue: #44229 · Analyzed runs: 28924071610, 28923878445.
Related to #39884

Generated by 🔍 [aw] Failure Investigator (6h) · 145.9 AIC · ⌖ 36.6 AIC · ⊞ 6.2K ·

  • expires on Jul 14, 2026, 11:47 PM UTC-08:00

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