Dear Maintainer,
I installed byobu with tmux on a new Debian 7.1 server. After few minutes the whole
server stopped responding. When I was able to see what happens the load was above 600.
There was several hundreds working tmux processes, which can be seen from the screenshot
at https://www.dropbox.com/s/wr7v1eg8don7rfy/Screenshot%20from%202014-01-12%2016%3A28%3A32.png

Hi,

Yanko Simeonoff <yanko@zecho.info> writes:

As far as I can tell the processes in question are instances of
byobu-status, it apparently never exits which leaks to the fork-bombing
of your machine as the status is regularly refreshed.

I'm reassigning this to byobu, please reassign back if you have
convincing arguments that this is a tmux issue.

Thanks,

Control: tags -1 + moreinfo

Screenshot is no longer available.

Are you still able to reproduce this with a current version of byobu
5.87-1 (available in both Debian 8 or wheezy-backports)? Just guessing,
but this may have been fixed (e.g. improvements were made to prevent
runaway apt-get processes when checking for available updates).

Thanks,

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
byobu, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 735178@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Dustin Kirkland <kirkland@ubuntu.com> (supplier of updated byobu package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:52:40 -0500
Source: byobu
Architecture: source
Version: 7.13-1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Dustin Kirkland <kirkland@ubuntu.com>
Changed-By: Dustin Kirkland <kirkland@ubuntu.com>
Closes: 735178 760431 772221 857223 992984 1030283 1071729 1107443 1124414 1138925
Changes:
 byobu (7.13-1) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   [ Dustin Kirkland ]
   * Major upstream release series 7.x — complete rewrite targeting tmux as
     the sole backend (GNU screen support removed). Covers all changes from
     7.0 through 7.9, first upload of the 7.x series to Debian unstable.
     Closes: #1138925
   * debian/rules: drop mobile/tests from dh_auto_test
   * trustmux: require TLS 1.3 minimum in --self-signed mode
   * trustmux.1: correct pairing code TTL from 5 min to 3 min
   * debian/po/sv.po:
     - replace the placeholder 2020 anonymous Swedish translation with
       the proper 2024 translation from Martin Bagge <brother@persilja.net>,
       submitted via Debian BTS; previous version had awkward phrasing and
       a typo ("t.e.x) konsol"); new version uses correct idiomatic Swedish
       and credits the debian-l10n-swedish team
       Closes: #1071729
   * debian/po/zh_CN.po, debian/po/zh_TW.po:
     - remove spurious #, fuzzy flag from header (all msgstrs are complete
       and non-fuzzy; flag was auto-generated by Poedit for the header entry)
   * debian/po/zh_CN.po:
     - replace Unicode "smart quotes" around 'byobu-config' with ASCII
       single quotes to match debconf conventions and all other translations
   * debian/control: remove Antoine Beaupré from Uploaders per his request
   * usr/bin/byobu-ulevel:
     - replace awk %.*f with bash printf for busybox compatibility
   * usr/share/byobu/doc/byobu.1:
     - document URxvt Ctrl+Shift+Fn keysym fix in BUGS section
   * mobile/trustmux/static/app.js, mobile/trustmux/static/index.html:
     - add optional biometric/PIN re-authentication lock to the Trustmux PWA;
       uses the WebAuthn platform authenticator API (fingerprint, face unlock,
       or device PIN as fallback) to lock the app after 5 minutes of inactivity
       or 30 seconds of being backgrounded; on first launch after pairing, the
       user is offered to enable the lock (can choose Enable, Not now, or Never
       ask again); if enabled, the app locks on cold start and requires biometric
       or PIN to unlock; a Disable lock option is available from the lock screen
       itself; requires HTTPS (WebAuthn spec requirement)
   * usr/share/byobu/profiles/bashrc:
     - fix exit code always showing 0 in the PS1 prompt status indicator;
       byobu_prompt_status() was reading $? inside PS1 expansion, but
       byobu_prompt_runtime() ran first and reset $? to 0; fix by saving
       the real exit code into _byobu_exit_code via a new _byobu_save_exit()
       function prepended to PROMPT_COMMAND, which fires before PS1 rendering
       while $? still holds the exit code of the last user command
   * README.md, configure.ac, man pages, appdata:
     - update all byobu.org references from http:// to https://; the domain
       has required HTTPS for years and all source-tree links now reflect
       that; byobu.org is confirmed accessible at https://byobu.org;
       commit 0106e742 (May 2026)
       LP: #1837812, #1842990
   * usr/bin/byobu-launch.in:
     - skip autolaunch when $TMUX is already set, preventing nested session
       warning "sessions should be nested with care" when opening a new pane
       or window inside an existing byobu/tmux session
   * usr/bin/purge-old-kernels:
     - print visible deprecation warning to stderr before delegating to
       apt-get autoremove, directing users to 'sudo apt autoremove'
   * usr/share/byobu/profiles/bashrc:
     - use >| for dircolors redirect to work correctly when the shell has
       set -o noclobber active (e.g. oh-my-bash)
   * debian/control, debian/rules, debian/byobu.install, debian/byobu.dirs,
     debian/byobu.manpages, debian/byobu.lintian-overrides, debian/docs:
     - fold trustmux into the byobu binary package; all trustmux files
       (daemon, CLI tools, Python library, static PWA assets, man pages) are
       now installed by the byobu package so that "dpkg -i byobu*.deb" brings
       trustmux along for the ride; the daemon does not start automatically —
       users must explicitly run trustmux-enable to opt in; pip install and
       brew install remain available for those who want trustmux without byobu;
       remove the separate trustmux binary package from the source package;
       add python3-cryptography and python3-tornado to byobu's Depends as they
       are now required at runtime; python3-cryptography is in Ubuntu/Debian main
   *
   * debian/po translations:
     - debian/po/fr.po: add French debconf translation (Grégoire Scano, 2019)
     - debian/po/nl.po: add Dutch debconf translation (Frans Spiesschaert, 2019)
     - debian/po/pt_BR.po: add Brazilian Portuguese debconf translation
       (Adriano Rafael Gomes, 2020)
     - debian/po/de.po: capitalisation fix + proper German quotation marks
     - debian/po/ru.po: replace incomplete 2010 translation with complete
       2019 version from Lev Lamberov (Debian L10N Russian)
   * usr/share/byobu/profiles/tmuxrc:
     - fix tmux 3.6 startup syntax errors: replace #{BYOBU_ACCENT} and
       #{BYOBU_HIGHLIGHT} format strings with $VAR environment-variable
       expansion; tmux 3.6 no longer accepts #{} in style option values.
       GH: #105
   * usr/share/byobu/include/colors:
     - drop historic \# backslash escape before hex colour values; tmux 3.6
       explicitly rejects the \#RRGGBB form; plain #RRGGBB is accepted by all
       supported tmux versions. GH: #105
   * debian/postinst:
     - update gnome-terminal server binary path check from the old
       /usr/lib/gnome-terminal/gnome-terminal-server to the current
       /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal-server (gnome-terminal 3.34.0+ migration);
       old path also checked for backward compatibility.
       Closes: #857223
   * usr/lib/byobu/disk_io:
     - fix cache read failure causing incorrect I/O statistics; the Linux
       path wrote the cache file without a trailing newline, causing POSIX
       read to always fail and display cumulative totals instead of rates.
       Closes: #992984
   * usr/bin/byobu.in:
     - prefer tmux-256color terminfo over screen-256color when available;
       screen-256color defines smso=\E[3m (italic escape) causing tmux to
       render standout as italic rather than reverse video.
       Closes: #760431
   * usr/lib/byobu/include/select-session.py:
     - honour .always-select flag correctly: when ~/.byobu/.always-select
       exists the session-selection menu always appears, even with zero or
       one existing session. Closes: #1030283
   * debian/po/sv.po:
     - add Swedish debconf template translation from Martin Bagge.
       Closes: #1071729
   * debian/po/pt.po:
     - add complete Portuguese debconf translation from Américo Monteiro;
       the 2010 Tiago Silva version left two of three msgstr entries empty.
       Closes: #1107443
   * debian/po/zh_CN.po, debian/po/zh_TW.po:
     - add Simplified and Traditional Chinese debconf template translations
       from Yangfl <mmyangfl@gmail.com>. Closes: #1124414
   * Close obsolete bugs:
     - #735178 (tmux starts infinite threads): moreinfo requested in 2015,
       no response in over ten years; byobu-status substantially hardened.
     - #772221 (bashism fractional sleep): GNU coreutils sleep supports
       fractional arguments on all supported architectures; not a concern.
       Closes: #735178, #772221
   * debian/control, debian/rules, debian/byobu.install:
     - fold trustmux mobile companion into the byobu binary package; all
       trustmux files (daemon, CLI tools, Python library, PWA assets, man
       pages) installed by the byobu package; daemon does not start
       automatically — users opt in via trustmux-enable.
     - add python3-tornado and python3-cryptography to Depends (required
       at runtime by the trustmux daemon).
 .
   [ Andreas Tille]
   * debian/control:
     - update Vcs-Git and Vcs-Browser to Salsa.
     - update Standards-Version to 4.7.4 (no changes required).
   * debian/watch: update from Launchpad to GitHub for upstream tarballs.
   * debian/control: dh-python → dh-sequence-python3 (modern debhelper);
     drop run-one from Recommends; drop apport from Suggests;
     ttf-ubuntu-font-family → fonts-ubuntu (package renamed);
     tmux (>= 1.5) → tmux (version constraint obsolete);
     debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0 → debconf | debconf-2.0;
     add ${perl:Depends}; Homepage → https://www.byobu.org
   * debian/rules: drop --with python3 (implied by dh-sequence-python3)
   * debian/watch: upgrade to version 5 git mode
   * debian/copyright: convert to DEP-5 machine-readable format
   * debian/upstream/metadata: new file with Bug-Database/Bug-Submit URLs
   * debian/salsa-ci.yml: add Salsa CI pipeline configuration
   * debian/source/lintian-overrides: drop now-resolved overrides for
   * debian-watch-does-not-check-openpgp-signature and no-dep5-copyright
   * Remove unused lintian-overrides
   * debian/salsa-ci.yml: do not fail test-uscan
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