Dear Mark, It's not a question of how big - someone will always exceed the limit :) It's the technique employed. I appreciate you are trying to reuse secure code by enforcing an arbitrary limit on popen calls but the list itself is internally constructed and therefore should be considered secure, _possibly_ bypassing this restriction. I know that buffer overruns are a serious problem in secure software and hence I understand why this limit is in place.
I'll probably get around it by dumping an iterated list to a temporary file that is constructed on the fly and parsing that to a yum/RPM command. Convoluted but it's questionable whether I should be using cfengine for this task anyway. Another option is to use package groups instead but that requires changes in my yum/yam repository. I could easily get around it by recompiling with a 'large enough' CF_MAXARGUMENTS but that would likely have other implications (memory and stack usage primarily). So I would prefer not to do that unless absolutely necessary. I was hoping that someone had come across this before but obviously not. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your help. Best Regards, Brett -----Original Message----- From: Mark Burgess [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 14 July 2006 11:58 To: Brett Delle Grazie Cc: help-cfengine@cfengine.org Subject: Re: Package installation of RPMs - Too many arguments in embedded script [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Dear Steve, > > Thanks for that. It does appear that it's cfengine imposing the limit > way before it gets anywhere near yum. Looking at the source the issue > is in popen.c where it imposes the limit of CF_MAXSHELLARGS (which is > set to 30). I can see why this is done (to limit memory/stack usage) > but it does break the package > > mechanism rather thoroughly. > > Best Regards, > > Brett > > -----Original Message----- > From: Steve Kemp [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 14 July 2006 11:18 > To: Brett Delle Grazie > Cc: help-cfengine@cfengine.org > Subject: Re: Package installation of RPMs - Too many arguments in > embedded script > > On Fri, Jul 14, 2006 at 10:56:40AM +0100, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> I'm using Yum so my rpm install command is: >> >> RPMInstallCommand = ( "/usr/bin/yum -y install %s" ) >> >> However I'm getting the messages (in verbose mode): > >> ... long list of packages ... >> package install: cfengine:build-test: Too many arguments in > embedded >> script > >> Does anyone have a work around for this already (i.e. probably > using >> shellcommands)? > > Perhaps something like: > > /bin/echo %s | xargs --max-args 20 /usr/bin/yum -y install \{\} \; > > That would split up the package installation to only attempt 20 at > a time. Of course then you might have dependency problems if the > first 20 packages depend on something to be installed in the next 20 .. > > Steve How big do you think this arg list should be to help you out? -- Mark Burgess Professor of Network and System Administration Oslo University College ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Work: +47 22453272 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax : +47 22453205 WWW : http://www.iu.hio.no/~mark ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Help-cfengine mailing list Help-cfengine@cfengine.org http://cfengine.org/mailman/listinfo/help-cfengine
