Bug#693960: [Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#693960: sysvinit: Undocumented, obscure limit for process field in inittab entries
On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 05:30:31PM -0200, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: Eh, should we also increase that limit to something larger [if it is feasible to do so] ? Whilst I do not like that kind of arbitrary limit, I don't think it's critically important (let alone good) to have absurdly long lines in inittab. If you need to do something that doesn't fit in 127 bytes on its command line, you might just as well write a wrapper, and call that fron inittab. Helps keeping things tidy - but that's personal preference of course. -- with best regards: - Johannes Truschnigg ( johan...@truschnigg.info ) www: http://johannes.truschnigg.info/ phone: +43 650 2 17 xmpp: johan...@truschnigg.info Please do not bother me with HTML-email or attachments. Thank you. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Bug#693960: sysvinit: Undocumented, obscure limit for process field in inittab entries
Package: sysvinit
Version: 2.88dsf-13.1+squeeze1
Severity: minor
Tags: patch
I added a new entry to inittab on a busy host which did not seem to start upon
invoking `telinit q`. Syslog received the following message:
Nov 22 10:16:29 r7 init: /etc/inittab[93]: process field too long
This limit (127 characters) is not documented in man 5 inittab, nor anywhere
else I looked. In init's source file, there are error messages the explicitely
state length limits for other fields in inittab (which a user is much less
likely to overflow, I think), which seems kind of weird.
The attached patch adds the length limit information to init's error message
and to the appropriate man page.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0.6
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-0.bpo.3-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Versions of packages sysvinit depends on:
ii initscripts2.88dsf-13.1+squeeze1 scripts for initializing and shutt
ii libc6 2.11.3-4 Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii libselinux12.0.96-1 SELinux runtime shared libraries
ii libsepol1 2.0.41-1 SELinux library for manipulating b
ii sysv-rc2.88dsf-13.1+squeeze1 System-V-like runlevel change mech
ii sysvinit-utils 2.88dsf-13.1+squeeze1 System-V-like utilities
sysvinit recommends no packages.
sysvinit suggests no packages.
-- no debconf information
diff -u -r a/sysvinit-2.88dsf/man/inittab.5 b/sysvinit-2.88dsf/man/inittab.5
--- a/sysvinit-2.88dsf/man/inittab.5 2009-09-10 10:28:49.0 +0200
+++ b/sysvinit-2.88dsf/man/inittab.5 2012-11-22 10:32:17.554426005 +0100
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@
.B init
will not do utmp and wtmp accounting for that process. This is needed for
gettys that insist on doing their own utmp/wtmp housekeeping. This is also
-a historic bug.
+a historic bug. The length of this fiels is limited to 127 characters.
.\}}}
.PP
The \fIrunlevels\fP field may contain multiple characters for different
diff -u -r a/sysvinit-2.88dsf/src/init.c b/sysvinit-2.88dsf/src/init.c
--- a/sysvinit-2.88dsf/src/init.c 2010-04-13 11:48:54.0 +0200
+++ b/sysvinit-2.88dsf/src/init.c 2012-11-22 10:28:54.653475075 +0100
@@ -1314,7 +1314,7 @@
if (rlevel strlen(rlevel) 11)
strcpy(err, rlevel field too long (max 11 characters));
if (process strlen(process) 127)
- strcpy(err, process field too long);
+ strcpy(err, process field too long (max 127 characters));
if (action strlen(action) 32)
strcpy(err, action field too long);
if (err[0] != 0) {
Bug#693960: [Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#693960: sysvinit: Undocumented, obscure limit for process field in inittab entries
On Thu, 22 Nov 2012, Johannes Truschnigg wrote: Package: sysvinit Version: 2.88dsf-13.1+squeeze1 Severity: minor Tags: patch I added a new entry to inittab on a busy host which did not seem to start upon invoking `telinit q`. Syslog received the following message: Nov 22 10:16:29 r7 init: /etc/inittab[93]: process field too long This limit (127 characters) is not documented in man 5 inittab, nor anywhere else I looked. In init's source file, there are error messages the explicitely state length limits for other fields in inittab (which a user is much less likely to overflow, I think), which seems kind of weird. Eh, should we also increase that limit to something larger [if it is feasible to do so] ? -- One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot Henrique Holschuh -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Bug#693960: [Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#693960: sysvinit: Undocumented, obscure limit for process field in inittab entries
On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 05:30:31PM -0200, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: On Thu, 22 Nov 2012, Johannes Truschnigg wrote: Package: sysvinit Version: 2.88dsf-13.1+squeeze1 Severity: minor Tags: patch I added a new entry to inittab on a busy host which did not seem to start upon invoking `telinit q`. Syslog received the following message: Nov 22 10:16:29 r7 init: /etc/inittab[93]: process field too long This limit (127 characters) is not documented in man 5 inittab, nor anywhere else I looked. In init's source file, there are error messages the explicitely state length limits for other fields in inittab (which a user is much less likely to overflow, I think), which seems kind of weird. Eh, should we also increase that limit to something larger [if it is feasible to do so] ? Looks like it's just the process field in struct _child_ (src/init.h); but there's also a static line buffer. We could potentially make this dynamically allocated with imalloc; or just make it longer and also increase the line buffer size accordingly. (It's kind of horrible that they hard coded the size when checking, rather than using sizeof()) Regards, Roger -- .''`. Roger Leigh : :' : Debian GNU/Linuxhttp://people.debian.org/~rleigh/ `. `' schroot and sbuild http://alioth.debian.org/projects/buildd-tools `-GPG Public Key F33D 281D 470A B443 6756 147C 07B3 C8BC 4083 E800 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
