GNU bug report logs - #52831
[installer] Locale problems with nss-certs

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
To: bug-guix <at> gnu.org
Subject: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2021 14:52:31 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

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.

[installer.png (image/png, attachment)]

Message #8 received at 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe <at> gnu.org>
To: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
Cc: 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52831: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 18:26:05 +0100

Hello Leo,

> 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:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
  (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)))))))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

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.

--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?

Thanks,

Mathieu

Message #11 received at 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
To: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52831: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 13:47:47 -0500

On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 06:26:05PM +0100, Mathieu Othacehe wrote:
> > 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.

> 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?

Message #14 received at 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe <at> gnu.org>
To: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
Cc: 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52831: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 23:02:45 +0100

Hello Leo,

> 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.

--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,

Mathieu

Message #17 received at 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
To: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52831: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 19:11:21 -0500

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 11:02:45PM +0100, Mathieu Othacehe wrote:
> 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.

[installer-crash.png (image/png, attachment)]

Message #20 received at 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe <at> gnu.org>
To: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
Cc: 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52831: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 10:37:45 +0100

Hey,

> 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

Message #23 received at 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe <at> gnu.org>
To: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
Cc: 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52831: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 12:21:55 +0100

> 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

Message #26 received at 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
To: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 52831 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52831: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 13:11:58 -0500

On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 12:21:55PM +0100, Mathieu Othacehe wrote:
> 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?

Message #31 received at 52831-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Mathieu Othacehe <othacehe <at> gnu.org>
To: Leo Famulari <leo <at> famulari.name>
Cc: 52831-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#52831: [installer] Locale problems with nss-certs
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 20:34:13 +0100

> 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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