Re: [PATCH v2] ldconfig: set LC_COLLATE to C [BZ #22505]

[Rafal Luzynski <digitalfreak at lingonborough dot com>]

30.11.2017 23:43 Aurelien Jarno <aurelien@aurel32.net> wrote:
>
> [...]
> diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
> index f3fdf9aec5..df699c6997 100644
> --- a/NEWS
> +++ b/NEWS
> @@ -43,6 +43,10 @@ Major new features:
>
> * glibc now implements the memfd_create and mlock2 functions on Linux.
>
> +* The ldconfig utility now process `include' directives using the C/POSIX

Did you mean "processes"? ----^^^^^^^

Otherwise the patch is trivial.  I have not tested but I guess that
nothing wrong could happen here.

Seems like I was late to discuss in the previous thread so here are my
humble opinions.  The packagers (distributors, etc.) name the files in
/etc/ld.so.conf.d after the package (application, library, etc.) name
which is pretty random.  This makes me think that the order of loading
those config files does not matter.  Otherwise there would be some
mechanism enforcing the correct order of the files.  However, if it
ever happens that the order does matter then enforcing a consistent
locale will help to track down a potential bug.  Otherwise the
reproducibility of a bug would depend on the locale.  Therefore this
change is good.  But why not C.UTF-8?  If it is not yet ready then
why not wait a little until it is?

Few more details:

27.11.2017 09:47 Rical Jasan <ricaljasan@pacific.net> wrote:
> [...] If a strict ordering is needed, I would expect numerical
> prefixing to be used.

That's exactly what I mean.

27.11.2017 17:36 Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com> wrote:
> [...]
> This patch, while being the correct thing to do, has the capability to
> completely break a users system if the administrator used locale-specific
> ordering to find paths that were needed for say critical identity management
> plugins for ldap or other subsystems required for login (krb5), of which
> I know at least one with such changes (but no locale-specific ordering on
> the configuration files).

Unless an administrator has developed his/her own config files instead of
using standard packages I think that means these packages are broken already.
If that particular combination of packages (and their config files) works
correctly in that particular computer it means it works only in that
particular locale.  Forcing C locale only reveals a bug which should be
fixed anyway.

> A quick brainstorm:
>
> * Do nothing. A minimal number of users have broken systems because of
> collation
> in their locale breaks certain packages adding known to sort incorrectly
> entries
> from their distribution for ld.so.conf.d/.

Doing nothing is another good solution IMHO.  Do we know about any actual
combination of packages/config files/locales which is broken?

> [...] We really should switch to C.UTF-8, but we don't have
> this upstream yet (working on it).

I agree with this.  Carlos, if you are working on C.UTF-8 is it likely that
you finish it during this development cycle?  Can we wait until you finish?

27.11.2017 18:02 Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com> wrote:
> [...]
> We can also enumerate twice and warn if there are any differences.

I think it's likely (very low probability but nonzero) that a difference
exists but very unlikely that it does actually matter.  What should
an administrator do when he/she sees such a warning?  Rename the files?
What should a casual user do?  An owner of a consumer device?

Regards,

Rafal