View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0003331 | GNUnet | other | public | 2014-02-24 20:08 | 2017-02-26 01:57 |
| Reporter | chrysn | Assigned To | Christian Grothoff | ||
| Priority | normal | Severity | tweak | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | closed | Resolution | won't fix | ||
| OS | Debian GNU/Linux | OS Version | sid | ||
| Product Version | 0.9.5a | ||||
| Target Version | 0.11.0pre66 | Fixed in Version | 0.11.0pre66 | ||
| Summary | 0003331: tools do not report error when permissions are missing | ||||
| Description | the gnunet tools (eg. gnunet-peerinfo, but also the graphical ones) fail silently when they can not operate for lack of permissions. for example, after gnunet is installed with the default groups, a user not in the `gnunet` group can do $ gnunet-peerinfo $ echo $? 0 and think that there are just no peers (or do `gnunet-search gpl` and think nobody provides a download of the license). if a program can't do as requested, i suggest an error message along the lines of $ gnunet-peerinfo Access to the GNUnet server denied. Please make sure you have the permissions to access $SOME_SOCKET. $ echo $? 1 (if it's not a socket the user needs to access, there'll be something someone familiar with the operating system's permission scheme can relate to). this would make it easier for newcomers to avoid what is an obvious mistake to an experienced gnunet user, and is generally a good idea in user interface design in my opinion. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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Well, it's slightly better for me with SVN HEAD: $ gnunet-peerinfo Service `peerinfo' is not running, please start GNUnet grothoff@spec:~$ echo $? 0 Still, I agree that the return code should indicate an error in this case. |
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Also, please file separate bugs for separate tools, as the behavior differs for each tool (and similarly, each tool will require a separate fix). For example, gnunet-fs-gtk does report the connectivity status with a green/red LED (which may be insufficient, but at least there is an indicator). Also, I'm not sure if a 'hard instant fail' is the right thing for each tool -- for example, gnunet-search just keeps trying to connect to the FS service and does not terminate (until say CTRL-C). So given this kind of "resilient" behavior (which can be appropriate, as the command-line tool would, for example, survive the FS service crashing), I'm not sure how to best fix this. Especially given that the FS APIs by design don't report connectivity problems, as they internally simply keep trying. So we really need to discuss fixes on a per-tool basis (we might put in a log message into the general connection logic, but that would not address the return value). |
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Situation is now actually worse --- gnunet-peerinfo also won't report it anymore. The reason is that we've moved more towards a case where all the tools will simply keep trying (and not terminate), because it's not so much a permissions issue, but an issue that the target service may simply not YET be running, so we just _wait_. And for waiting, you don't get an error. Not sure how to fix this, as the "just wait and keep trying" semantics are also now buried quite deeply, and I do think that hiding the retrying is a good thing, as I do not want to worry about it in each application. So I think this has to be closed with 'wontfix'. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-02-24 20:08 | chrysn | New Issue | |
| 2014-03-04 22:50 | Christian Grothoff | Note Added: 0008129 | |
| 2014-03-04 22:50 | Christian Grothoff | Status | new => confirmed |
| 2014-03-04 22:50 | Christian Grothoff | Note Edited: 0008129 | |
| 2014-03-04 22:55 | Christian Grothoff | Note Added: 0008130 | |
| 2017-02-26 01:57 | Christian Grothoff | Assigned To | => Christian Grothoff |
| 2017-02-26 01:57 | Christian Grothoff | Status | confirmed => closed |
| 2017-02-26 01:57 | Christian Grothoff | Resolution | open => won't fix |
| 2017-02-26 01:57 | Christian Grothoff | Fixed in Version | => 0.11.0pre66 |
| 2017-02-26 01:57 | Christian Grothoff | Target Version | => 0.11.0pre66 |
| 2017-02-26 01:57 | Christian Grothoff | Note Added: 0011853 |
