A SIGPIPE signal is sent to a process if it tries to write to a socket that has been shut down for writing or is disconnected. The signal number for SIGPIPE is 13.

Terminating the NETCONF session ungracefully during the data transfer over the pipe/socket may cause certain processes like alarm-control to terminate by signal number 13. The recovery mechanism is Junos restarts the process. Although there is no impact, the timestamps of any alarms present will change and appear as a new alarm.

Process (alarm-control) terminated by "signal number 13" messages may be seen when a NETCONF session is terminated ungracefully during a data transfer over the pipe/socket.

Dec 21 19:43:26 juniper-switch mgd[56554]: UI_NETCONF_CMD: User 'netconf_user' used NETCONF client to run command 'get-system-uptime-information'

Dec 21 19:43:27 juniper-switch mgd[56554]: UI_NETCONF_CMD: User 'netconf_user' used NETCONF client to run command 'get-software-information'

Dec 21 19:43:27 juniper-switch mgd[56554]: UI_NETCONF_CMD: User 'netconf_user' used NETCONF client to run command 'get-software-information level=detail'

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Dec 21 19:43:29 juniper-switch mgd[56554]: UI_LOGOUT_EVENT: User 'netconf_user' logout

Dec 21 19:43:28 juniper-switch jlaunchd[8594]: alarm-control (PID 8813) terminated by signal number 13!

Dec 21 19:43:28 juniper-switch jlaunchd[8594]: Registered PID 56835(alarm-control): exec_command

Dec 21 19:43:28 juniper-switch jlaunchd[8594]: alarm-control (PID 56835) started

Dec 21 19:43:28 juniper-switch jlaunchd[8594]: Registered PID 56835(alarm-control): new process

Terminating the NETCONF session ungracefully during the data transfer over the pipe/socket causes this issue. The session needs to be closed gracefully by the rpc command 'close-session'. Consider adding a delay to ensure that NETCONF data transfer is completed before the session is terminated.

2024-05-13 : Article Created

2025-06-20 : Category added