Fix two races in interface.py.

First, close the socket from the thread itself rather than from
the stop() function.  This prevents another thread closing the
socket that the interface thread is simultaneously using.

Second, it occasionally would happen that the parent thread such as
network.py start() an interface, do a send_request() and timeout
waiting for a response (timeouts are 0.1s).  It would check
is_connected(), get False, and assume the connection has failed.
In fact the thread hadn't even been scheduled or gotten around to
completing the socket connection.  Fix by having self.connected
start out True.  If the connection fails or times out, we set
connected to False soon enough.

Finally for correctness we need to deepcopy a send_request() rather
than take a reference to it.

lib/interface.py

@@ -17,16 +17,16 @@
 # along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 
 
-import re, errno, os
+import copy, re, errno, os
 import threading, traceback, sys, time, Queue
 import socket
 import ssl
 
-import x509
-import util
 import requests
 ca_path = requests.certs.where()
 
+import util
+import x509
 from version import ELECTRUM_VERSION, PROTOCOL_VERSION
 from simple_config import SimpleConfig
 
@@ -40,8 +40,7 @@ def Interface(server, response_queue, config = None):
     - Member functions send_request(), stop(), is_connected()
     - Member variable server.
     
-    "is_connected()" is currently racy.  "server" is constant for the object's lifetime and hence
+    "server" is constant for the object's lifetime and hence synchronization is unnecessary.
-    synchronization is unnecessary.
     """
     host, port, protocol = server.split(':')
     if protocol in 'st':
@@ -55,7 +54,12 @@ class TcpInterface(threading.Thread):
         threading.Thread.__init__(self)
         self.daemon = True
         self.config = config if config is not None else SimpleConfig()
-        self.connected = False
+        # Set by stop(); no more data is exchanged and the thread exits after gracefully
+        # closing the socket
+        self.disconnect = False
+        # Initially True to avoid a race; set to False on failure to create a socket or when
+        # it is closed
+        self.connected = True
         self.debug = False # dump network messages. can be changed at runtime using the console
         self.message_id = 0
         self.response_queue = response_queue
@@ -250,7 +254,7 @@ class TcpInterface(threading.Thread):
     def send_request(self, request, response_queue = None):
         '''Queue a request.  Blocking only if called from other threads.'''
         self.request_time = time.time()
-        self.request_queue.put((request, response_queue), threading.current_thread() != self)
+        self.request_queue.put((copy.deepcopy(request), response_queue), threading.current_thread() != self)
 
     def send_requests(self):
         '''Sends all queued requests'''
@@ -271,14 +275,11 @@ class TcpInterface(threading.Thread):
             self.message_id += 1
 
     def is_connected(self):
-        return self.connected
+        return self.connected and not self.disconnect
 
     def stop(self):
-        if self.connected and self.protocol in 'st' and self.s:
+        self.disconnect = True
-            self.s.shutdown(socket.SHUT_RDWR)
+        self.print_error("disconnecting")
-            self.s.close()
-        self.connected = False
-        self.print_error("stopped")
 
     def maybe_ping(self):
         # ping the server with server.version
@@ -290,7 +291,7 @@ class TcpInterface(threading.Thread):
             self.print_error("interface timeout", len(self.unanswered_requests))
             self.stop()
 
-    def get_response(self):
+    def get_and_process_response(self):
         if self.is_connected():
             try:
                 response = self.pipe.get()
@@ -298,28 +299,30 @@ class TcpInterface(threading.Thread):
                 return
             # If remote side closed the socket, SocketPipe closes our socket and returns None
             if response is None:
-                self.connected = False
+                self.connected = False  # Don't re-close the socket
-            return response
+                self.print_error("connection closed remotely")
-
+            else:
-    def run(self):
-        self.s = self.get_socket()
-        if self.s:
-            self.pipe = util.SocketPipe(self.s)
-            self.s.settimeout(0.1)
-            self.connected = True
-            self.print_error("connected")
-
-        self.change_status()
-        if not self.connected:
-            return
-
-        while self.connected:
-            self.maybe_ping()
-            self.send_requests()
-            response = self.get_response()
-            if response:
                 self.process_response(response)
 
+    def run(self):
+        s = self.get_socket()
+        if s:
+            self.pipe = util.SocketPipe(s)
+            s.settimeout(0.1)
+            self.print_error("connected")
+            # Indicate to parent that we've connected
+            self.change_status()
+            while self.is_connected():
+                self.maybe_ping()
+                self.send_requests()
+                self.get_and_process_response()
+            if self.connected:  # Don't shutdown() a closed socket
+                s.shutdown(socket.SHUT_RDWR)
+                s.close()
+
+        # Also for the s is None case 
+        self.connected = False
+        # Indicate to parent that the connection is now down
         self.change_status()
 
     def change_status(self):