bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Hello to everybody,

one of my last make + make-install calls in the last couple of days
again made a file in my home directory being owned by root:

|  /home/micha/software/emacs/lisp/net:
|  drwxr-xr-x  2 micha micha 4,0K Nov 16 17:03 .
|  drwxr-xr-x 28 micha micha  20K Nov 16 17:03 ..
|  [...]
|  -rw-rw-r--  1 micha micha 108K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.el
|  -rw-r--r--  1 root  root  120K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.elc

Does that ring a bell (Michael maybe)?  Can we maybe prevent this?


TIA,

Michael


In GNU Emacs 31.0.50 (build 24, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, cairo version
 1.16.0) of 2024-11-16 built on drachen
Repository revision: 88c6b20cf609cb0b53d1a8ea9db0c35ba77fadb9
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12101007
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>
> Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2024 17:17:37 +0100
> From:  Michael Heerdegen via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
>  the Swiss army knife of text editors" <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> one of my last make + make-install calls in the last couple of days
> again made a file in my home directory being owned by root:
> 
> |  /home/micha/software/emacs/lisp/net:
> |  drwxr-xr-x  2 micha micha 4,0K Nov 16 17:03 .
> |  drwxr-xr-x 28 micha micha  20K Nov 16 17:03 ..
> |  [...]
> |  -rw-rw-r--  1 micha micha 108K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.el
> |  -rw-r--r--  1 root  root  120K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.elc
> 
> Does that ring a bell (Michael maybe)?  Can we maybe prevent this?

Judging by the name of the directory you show, this is not the
installation tree, but a build tree, right?  Then it doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with "make install", but with how you
run "make", I guess?  because tramp-loaddefs.elc is produced by
"make", not by "make install".

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Judging by the name of the directory you show, this is not the
> installation tree, but a build tree, right?

Yes.

> Then it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with "make install",
> but with how you run "make", I guess?  because tramp-loaddefs.elc is
> produced by "make", not by "make install".

I don't have an explanation.  But AFAIR I did not call "make" as user
"root", I am very careful to avoid doing that by accident because I have
to clean up a mess afterwards when that happens.

"tramp-loaddefs.elc" is the only file owned by root - which would mean
that the problematic "make" call would have had compiled only one single
file (unlikely).  I would estimate a probability of 75% that this was
not my fault.

I didn't find something like "sudo make" in my bash history either, and
I did not do something like sudo su in the last days.


Michael.

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Michael Albinus via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

Hi Michael,

> I didn't find something like "sudo make" in my bash history either, and
> I did not do something like sudo su in the last days.

I tried to reproduce, and I've applied

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
# make bootstrap
# sudo make install
# ll lisp/net/*loaddefs*
-rw-rw----+ 1 albinus albinus 110234 Nov 17 17:37 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.el
-rw-r--r--+ 1 albinus albinus 122088 Nov 17 17:58 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.elc
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

This is inside the git repo. No idea, what happened for you.

You have shown

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
|  -rw-rw-r--  1 micha micha 108K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.el
|  -rw-r--r--  1 root  root  120K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.elc
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Do you know (from bash history or whatever), which command did run at
that time? Perhaps also check bash history of user root?

> Michael.

Best regards, Michael.

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de> writes:

> I tried to reproduce, and I've applied
>
> # make bootstrap
> # sudo make install
> # ll lisp/net/*loaddefs*
> -rw-rw----+ 1 albinus albinus 110234 Nov 17 17:37 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.el
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 albinus albinus 122088 Nov 17 17:58 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.elc
>
> This is inside the git repo. No idea, what happened for you.

I also can't reproduce this now.


> You have shown
>
> |  -rw-rw-r--  1 micha micha 108K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.el
> |  -rw-r--r--  1 root  root  120K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.elc
>
> Do you know (from bash history or whatever), which command did run at
> that time? Perhaps also check bash history of user root?

I didn't find anything obvious apart from the daily make -j4 plus sudo
make install.  I'm quite sure I did not use a root shell or root Emacs
two days ago.

I try to recover everything I can find in my memory.  If I don't find
something, let's assume a pilot error, although I have no idea how I
could have caused this by myself.


Michael.

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Michael Heerdegen via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

> I try to recover everything I can find in my memory.

No idea to be honest.  Let's not waste time and assume I made nonsense.
I can reopen in case it comes back.

Michael.

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Michael Albinus via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:

Hi Michael,

>> I try to recover everything I can find in my memory.
>
> No idea to be honest.  Let's not waste time and assume I made nonsense.
> I can reopen in case it comes back.

Wait, I could reproduce the problem:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
# rm lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.elc
# sudo make install
# ll lisp/net/*loaddefs*
-rw-rw----+ 1 albinus albinus 110234 Nov 17 17:37 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.el
-rw-r--r--+ 1 root    root    122088 Nov 18 09:27 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.elc
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

I'll reopen the bug.

> Michael.

Best regards, Michael.

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  74400-done@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2024 09:37:51 +0100
> 
> Michael Heerdegen <michael_heerdegen@web.de> writes:
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> >> I try to recover everything I can find in my memory.
> >
> > No idea to be honest.  Let's not waste time and assume I made nonsense.
> > I can reopen in case it comes back.
> 
> Wait, I could reproduce the problem:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> # rm lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.elc
> # sudo make install
> # ll lisp/net/*loaddefs*
> -rw-rw----+ 1 albinus albinus 110234 Nov 17 17:37 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.el
> -rw-r--r--+ 1 root    root    122088 Nov 18 09:27 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.elc
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

But note that here the time stamps of the two files are very diferent,
which seems to indicate that tramp-loaddefs.el was somehow
byte-compiled as part of "make install".  Whereas in the OP, we saw a
different picture:

|  /home/micha/software/emacs/lisp/net:
|  drwxr-xr-x  2 micha micha 4,0K Nov 16 17:03 .
|  drwxr-xr-x 28 micha micha  20K Nov 16 17:03 ..
|  [...]
|  -rw-rw-r--  1 micha micha 108K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.el
|  -rw-r--r--  1 root  root  120K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.elc

Look, ma: same time stamp.  Which seems to indicate they were both
produced at the same time, so probably by the same command.

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Michael Albinus via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

Hi Eli,

>> > No idea to be honest.  Let's not waste time and assume I made nonsense.
>> > I can reopen in case it comes back.
>>
>> Wait, I could reproduce the problem:
>>
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> # rm lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.elc
>> # sudo make install
>> # ll lisp/net/*loaddefs*
>> -rw-rw----+ 1 albinus albinus 110234 Nov 17 17:37 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.el
>> -rw-r--r--+ 1 root    root    122088 Nov 18 09:27 lisp/net/tramp-loaddefs.elc
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> But note that here the time stamps of the two files are very diferent,
> which seems to indicate that tramp-loaddefs.el was somehow
> byte-compiled as part of "make install".  Whereas in the OP, we saw a
> different picture:
>
> |  /home/micha/software/emacs/lisp/net:
> |  drwxr-xr-x  2 micha micha 4,0K Nov 16 17:03 .
> |  drwxr-xr-x 28 micha micha  20K Nov 16 17:03 ..
> |  [...]
> |  -rw-rw-r--  1 micha micha 108K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.el
> |  -rw-r--r--  1 root  root  120K Nov 15 17:01 tramp-loaddefs.elc
>
> Look, ma: same time stamp.  Which seems to indicate they were both
> produced at the same time, so probably by the same command.

My example doesn't claim to be the recipe which happened to Michael. But
it shows, that 'sudo make install' could create root-owned files in the
build dir, and that's what this bug report is about.

I don't know whether it is important enough to change something. But we
should know (and document), that it could happen.

Best regards, Michael.

bug#74400: 31.0.50; tramp-loaddefs.elc suddenly owned by root

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de>
> Cc: michael_heerdegen@web.de,  74400-done@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2024 10:09:20 +0100
> 
> My example doesn't claim to be the recipe which happened to Michael. But
> it shows, that 'sudo make install' could create root-owned files in the
> build dir, and that's what this bug report is about.
> 
> I don't know whether it is important enough to change something. But we
> should know (and document), that it could happen.

If it's important enough, maybe.

I think "make install" uses chmod to give everyone access to the file
because some files could be owned by root.  If that works, why is the
ownership important?