[installer] Locale problems with nss-certs

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2 participants
  • Leo Famulari
  • Mathieu Othacehe
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unassigned
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Leo Famulari
Severity
normal
L
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Leo Famulari wrote on 27 Dec 2021 20:52
(address . bug-guix@gnu.org)
YcoZfztDWn8a7cYJ@jasmine.lan
While testing the Guix System installer, I noticed that installation of
nss-certs has some problems that seem related to locales.

Some of the certificate's filenames are encoded in a way that isn't
supported by the environment in which they are being handled, and so
these certificates are not installed into the new system.

I've attached a screenshot of the error messages in the installer. The
problematic certificates are listed there.
Attachment: installer.png
M
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Mathieu Othacehe wrote on 29 Dec 2021 18:26
(name . Leo Famulari)(address . leo@famulari.name)(address . 52831@debbugs.gnu.org)
878rw3l3v6.fsf@gnu.org
Hello Leo,

Toggle quote (3 lines)
> While testing the Guix System installer, I noticed that installation of
> nss-certs has some problems that seem related to locales.

What locale did you pick in the installer?

I think the issue lies in the (gnu installer utils) module, run-command
procedure:

Toggle snippet (13 lines)
(when locale
(let ((supported? (false-if-exception
(setlocale LC_ALL locale))))
;; If LOCALE is not supported, then set LANGUAGE, which might at
;; least give us translated messages.
(if supported?
(setenv "LC_ALL" locale)
(setenv "LANGUAGE"
(string-take locale
(or (string-index locale #\_)
(string-length locale)))))))

If you pick a locale such as en_AG.utf8 which is not supported by the
glibc-utf8-locales package, then supported? is #f, which means that
LC_ALL is never set.

The following patch fixes it for me.

Toggle snippet (23 lines)
diff --git a/gnu/installer/utils.scm b/gnu/installer/utils.scm
index bb97bc5560..d745996a3a 100644
--- a/gnu/installer/utils.scm
+++ b/gnu/installer/utils.scm
@@ -97,10 +97,12 @@ (define (pause)
;; least give us translated messages.
(if supported?
(setenv "LC_ALL" locale)
- (setenv "LANGUAGE"
- (string-take locale
- (or (string-index locale #\_)
- (string-length locale)))))))
+ (begin
+ (setlocale LC_ALL "en_US.utf8")
+ (setenv "LANGUAGE"
+ (string-take locale
+ (or (string-index locale #\_)
+ (string-length locale))))))))
(guard (c ((invoke-error? c)
(newline)

WDYT?

Thanks,

Mathieu
L
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Leo Famulari wrote on 29 Dec 2021 19:47
(name . Mathieu Othacehe)(address . othacehe@gnu.org)(address . 52831@debbugs.gnu.org)
YcytU85qlu3kt5zl@jasmine.lan
On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 06:26:05PM +0100, Mathieu Othacehe wrote:
Toggle quote (5 lines)
> > While testing the Guix System installer, I noticed that installation of
> > nss-certs has some problems that seem related to locales.
>
> What locale did you pick in the installer?

I chose the first items in the lists, which are "English" of the
territory "Antigua and Barbuda". That's "en_AG.utf8"

When I use "en_US.utf8", the problem does not occur.

Toggle quote (28 lines)
> The following patch fixes it for me.
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> diff --git a/gnu/installer/utils.scm b/gnu/installer/utils.scm
> index bb97bc5560..d745996a3a 100644
> --- a/gnu/installer/utils.scm
> +++ b/gnu/installer/utils.scm
> @@ -97,10 +97,12 @@ (define (pause)
> ;; least give us translated messages.
> (if supported?
> (setenv "LC_ALL" locale)
> - (setenv "LANGUAGE"
> - (string-take locale
> - (or (string-index locale #\_)
> - (string-length locale)))))))
> + (begin
> + (setlocale LC_ALL "en_US.utf8")
> + (setenv "LANGUAGE"
> + (string-take locale
> + (or (string-index locale #\_)
> + (string-length locale))))))))
>
> (guard (c ((invoke-error? c)
> (newline)
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> WDYT?

I applied this patch to my Git repo and built a new installer like this:

`./pre-inst-env guix system image -t uncompressed-iso9660 --label="GUIX_x86_64-linux-leo" --system=x86_64-linux gnu/system/install.scm`

Then I copied the image out of the store and booted it in QEMU.

But, I still had the problem during installation. Did I miss a step?
M
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Mathieu Othacehe wrote on 29 Dec 2021 23:02
(name . Leo Famulari)(address . leo@famulari.name)(address . 52831@debbugs.gnu.org)
878rw3ax2y.fsf@gnu.org
Hello Leo,

Toggle quote (4 lines)
> Then I copied the image out of the store and booted it in QEMU.
>
> But, I still had the problem during installation. Did I miss a step?

No, I just sent you a wrong version of my patch, sorry about
that. LC_ALL needs to be set as an environment variable and with a
setlocale call.

Toggle snippet (21 lines)
diff --git a/gnu/installer/utils.scm b/gnu/installer/utils.scm
index bb97bc5560..24c16e7e12 100644
--- a/gnu/installer/utils.scm
+++ b/gnu/installer/utils.scm
@@ -97,10 +97,13 @@ (define (pause)
;; least give us translated messages.
(if supported?
(setenv "LC_ALL" locale)
- (setenv "LANGUAGE"
- (string-take locale
- (or (string-index locale #\_)
- (string-length locale)))))))
+ (begin
+ (setlocale LC_ALL "en_US.utf8")
+ (setenv "LC_ALL" "en_US.utf8")
+ (setenv "LANGUAGE"
+ (string-take locale
+ (or (string-index locale #\_)
+ (string-length locale))))))))

Thanks,

Mathieu
L
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Leo Famulari wrote on 30 Dec 2021 01:11
(name . Mathieu Othacehe)(address . othacehe@gnu.org)(address . 52831@debbugs.gnu.org)
Ycz5KVExa1s0dU8p@jasmine.lan
On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 11:02:45PM +0100, Mathieu Othacehe wrote:
Toggle quote (26 lines)
> No, I just sent you a wrong version of my patch, sorry about
> that. LC_ALL needs to be set as an environment variable and with a
> setlocale call.
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> diff --git a/gnu/installer/utils.scm b/gnu/installer/utils.scm
> index bb97bc5560..24c16e7e12 100644
> --- a/gnu/installer/utils.scm
> +++ b/gnu/installer/utils.scm
> @@ -97,10 +97,13 @@ (define (pause)
> ;; least give us translated messages.
> (if supported?
> (setenv "LC_ALL" locale)
> - (setenv "LANGUAGE"
> - (string-take locale
> - (or (string-index locale #\_)
> - (string-length locale)))))))
> + (begin
> + (setlocale LC_ALL "en_US.utf8")
> + (setenv "LC_ALL" "en_US.utf8")
> + (setenv "LANGUAGE"
> + (string-take locale
> + (or (string-index locale #\_)
> + (string-length locale))))))))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Thanks, that does fix the issue with installing nss-certs.

But, now the installer always crashes at the end, after initializing the
system on /mnt, when I "Press Enter to continue". A screenshot of the
error message is attached. I can't scroll down to view more of it.
Attachment: installer-crash.png
M
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Mathieu Othacehe wrote on 30 Dec 2021 10:37
(name . Leo Famulari)(address . leo@famulari.name)(address . 52831@debbugs.gnu.org)
87sfuafn6e.fsf@gnu.org
Hey,

Toggle quote (4 lines)
> But, now the installer always crashes at the end, after initializing the
> system on /mnt, when I "Press Enter to continue". A screenshot of the
> error message is attached. I can't scroll down to view more of it.

Oh right, system tests are failing here:
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/eval/19842.Looks like the final umount fails,
that's strange.

Mathieu
M
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Mathieu Othacehe wrote on 30 Dec 2021 12:21
(name . Leo Famulari)(address . leo@famulari.name)(address . 52831@debbugs.gnu.org)
87fsqafics.fsf@gnu.org
Toggle quote (4 lines)
> Oh right, system tests are failing here:
> https://ci.guix.gnu.org/eval/19842. Looks like the final umount fails,
> that's strange.

Found why. Turns out installing the locale was preventing the cow-store
umount. This is now fixed in the wip-harden-installer branch. The
installer tests are passing, and I can use supported (fr_FR.utf8) and
unsupported (en_AG.utf8) locales without hitting the nss-certs copy
issue.

Thanks,

Mathieu
L
L
Leo Famulari wrote on 30 Dec 2021 19:11
(name . Mathieu Othacehe)(address . othacehe@gnu.org)(address . 52831@debbugs.gnu.org)
Yc32bvsig3lWtB69@jasmine.lan
On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 12:21:55PM +0100, Mathieu Othacehe wrote:
Toggle quote (6 lines)
> Found why. Turns out installing the locale was preventing the cow-store
> umount. This is now fixed in the wip-harden-installer branch. The
> installer tests are passing, and I can use supported (fr_FR.utf8) and
> unsupported (en_AG.utf8) locales without hitting the nss-certs copy
> issue.

Great, with your latest patch all seems to work well.

The plan is to use wip-harden-installer for the release, right?
M
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Mathieu Othacehe wrote on 30 Dec 2021 20:34
(name . Leo Famulari)(address . leo@famulari.name)(address . 52831-done@debbugs.gnu.org)
87wnjlga4q.fsf@gnu.org
Toggle quote (4 lines)
> Great, with your latest patch all seems to work well.
>
> The plan is to use wip-harden-installer for the release, right?

Yup, that's the plan :) In the meantime, I think we can close this one.

Thanks,

Mathieu
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