GNU bug report logs - #42633
8.32 make check as root failure of rmdir/ignore.sh

Previous Next

Full log

Message #14 received at 42633 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nick Alcock <nix <at> esperi.org.uk>
To: Bernhard Voelker <mail <at> bernhard-voelker.de>
Cc: 42633 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#42633: 8.32 make check as root failure of rmdir/ignore.sh
Date: Sat, 01 Aug 2020 15:05:03 +0100

On 31 Jul 2020, Bernhard Voelker spake thusly:

> On 2020-07-31 16:32, Nick Alcock wrote:
>> I get an ERROR when running rmdir/ignore.sh as root (but not when
>> running as non-root). [...]
>
>> ERROR: tests/rmdir/ignore
>> =========================
> [...]
>> + mkdir -p x/y
>> + chmod a-w x
>> + returns_ 1 rmdir --ignore-fail-on-non-empty x/y
>> + fail=1
>
> Thanks for reporting this issue.
>
> Indeed, this test does not work as root.

This suggests that running make check as root is not a routine part of
coreutils pre-release work, and that nobody has run a make check as root
since Jan 30! That's quite surprising given that running a make check as
root has long been encouraged. The README even says

> If you can run the tests as root, please do so and report any
> problems.  We get much less test coverage in that mode, and it's
> arguably more important that these tools work well when run by
> root than when run by less privileged users.

(This is not the first time I've hit test failures when checking
released coreutils as root, though it isn't *common*.)

> The comment in the test explains that it expects an EPERM error:

*slaps self* so it does, I really should have noticed that.

> The attached patch adds guards around the parts of the test which
> only work as non-privileged user.

Looks good to me, and fixes the bug. make check now passes as root.

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.