Bug#1136381: texlive-base: tlmgr fails with "Can't locate TeXLive/TLConfig.pm in @INC"

[Preuße , Hilmar]

Control: tags -1 + pending

Am 13.05.2026 um 04:39 schrieb Vincent Lefevre:

Hello,


In the 2026, the

   $Master = "/usr/share/texlive";

line is missing.



Yes, that line got lost, when redoing the patch for tlmgr. Sorry! Patch 
is on Debian salsa. I plan the next CTAN snapshot for end of May.


Hilmar
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Bug#1136381: texlive-base: tlmgr fails with "Can't locate TeXLive/TLConfig.pm in @INC"

[Vincent Lefevre]

Control: severity -1 serious

I'm raising the severity, because in addition to tlmgr becoming
unusable, this might be a security issue as there is an attempt
to execute code from /texmf-dist and /tlpkg, which may be
untrusted directories on the local machine.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre  - Web: 
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: 
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Bug#1136381: texlive-base: tlmgr fails with "Can't locate TeXLive/TLConfig.pm in @INC"

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2026-05-13 04:33:29 +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Can't locate TeXLive/TLConfig.pm in @INC (you may need to install the 
> TeXLive::TLConfig module) (@INC entries checked: /texmf-dist/scripts/texlive 
> /tlpkg /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.40.1 
> /usr/local/share/perl/5.40.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.40 
> /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base 
> /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.40 /usr/share/perl/5.40 
> /usr/local/lib/site_perl) at /usr/bin/tlmgr line 97.
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/bin/tlmgr line 97.

Indeed, @INC contains /texmf-dist/scripts/texlive /tlpkg, which are
incorrect. The 2025 version of /usr/bin/tlmgr had:

  $Master = "/usr/share/texlive";
  $::installerdir = $Master;  # for config.guess et al., see TLUtils.pm

  # make Perl find our packages first:
  unshift (@INC, "$Master/tlpkg");
  unshift (@INC, "$Master/texmf-dist/scripts/texlive");

In the 2026, the

  $Master = "/usr/share/texlive";

line is missing.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre  - Web: 
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: 
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Bug#1136381: texlive-base: tlmgr fails with "Can't locate TeXLive/TLConfig.pm in @INC"

[Vincent Lefevre]

Package: texlive-base
Version: 2026.20260328-4
Severity: important

After the upgrade to the 2026 version:

$ tlmgr
Use of uninitialized value $Master in concatenation (.) or string at 
/usr/bin/tlmgr line 87.
Use of uninitialized value $Master in concatenation (.) or string at 
/usr/bin/tlmgr line 88.
Can't locate TeXLive/TLConfig.pm in @INC (you may need to install the 
TeXLive::TLConfig module) (@INC entries checked: /texmf-dist/scripts/texlive 
/tlpkg /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.40.1 
/usr/local/share/perl/5.40.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.40 
/usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base 
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.40 /usr/share/perl/5.40 
/usr/local/lib/site_perl) at /usr/bin/tlmgr line 97.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/bin/tlmgr line 97.

-- Package-specific info:
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: We will only consider bug reports concerning
the packaging of TeX Live as relevant. If you have problems with
combination of packages in a LaTeX document, please consult your
local TeX User Group, the comp.text.tex user group, the author of
the original .sty file, or any other help resource. 

In particular, bugs that are related to up-upstream, i.e., neither
Debian nor TeX Live (upstream), but the original package authors,
will be closed immediately.

   *** The Debian TeX Team is *not* a LaTeX Help Desk ***

If you report an error when running one of the TeX-related binaries 
(latex, pdftex, metafont,...), or if the bug is related to bad or wrong
output, please include a MINIMAL example input file that produces the
error in your report.

Please run your example with
(pdf)latex -recorder ...
(or any other program that supports -recorder) and send us the generated
file with the extension .fls, it lists all the files loaded during
the run and can easily explain problems induced by outdated files in
your home directory.

Don't forget to also include minimal examples of other files that are 
needed, e.g. bibtex databases. Often it also helps
to include the logfile. Please, never send included pictures!

If your example file isn't short or produces more than one page of
output (except when multiple pages are needed to show the problem),
you can probably minimize it further. Instructions on how to do that
can be found at

http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/mini-en.html (english)

or 

http://www.minimalbeispiel.de/mini.html (german)

##
minimal input file


##
other files

##
 List of ls-R files

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3087 2026-05-12 16:16:52 /var/lib/texmf/ls-R
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 2025-12-06 00:37:27 /usr/share/texmf/ls-R -> 
/var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXMFMAIN
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 2026-04-25 10:40:44 
/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/ls-R -> /var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXLIVEDIST
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 2026-04-25 10:40:44 
/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/ls-R -> /var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXLIVEDIST
##
 Config files
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 475 2025-12-09 11:05:04 /etc/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 2026-04-25 10:40:44 
/usr/share/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf -> /var/lib/texmf/fmtutil.cnf-DEBIAN
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2026-04-25 10:40:44 /usr/share/texmf/web2c/updmap.cfg 
-> /var/lib/texmf/updmap.cfg-DEBIAN
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5254 2026-05-12 16:15:22 
/var/lib/texmf/tex/generic/config/language.dat
##
 Files in /etc/texmf/web2c/
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 283 2019-04-01 18:36:11 mktex.cnf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 475 2025-12-09 11:05:04 texmf.cnf
##
 md5sums of texmf.d
ca40c66f144b4bafc3e59a2dd32ecb9c  /etc/texmf/texmf.d/00debian.cnf

-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
  APT prefers unstable-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 
'stable-security'), (500, 'stable-debug'), (500, 'proposed-updates-debug'), 
(500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 7.0.4+deb14-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_CPU_OUT_OF_SPEC
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages texlive-base depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.92
ii  libpaper-utils 2.2.5-0.3+b3
ii  sensible-utils 0.0.26
ii  tex-common 6.20
ii  texlive-binaries   2026.20260303.78225+ds-3
ii  ucf3.0053
ii  xdg-utils  1.2.1-2

Versions of packages texlive-base recommends:
ii  lmodern  2.005-1

Versions of packages texlive-base suggests:
ii  ghostscript [postscript-viewer]   10.07.0~dfsg-2
pn  perl-tk   
ii  xpdf [pdf-viewer] 3.04+git20260220-1
pn  xzdec 
ii  zathura-pdf-poppl