Re: coreutils-5.0: test failure on rm/fail-2eperm

[Jim Meyering]

Michael Deutschmann <address@hidden> wrote:
> I get the following test failure:
>
> make[3]: Entering directory `/vol/resv/build/cu-build/tests/rm'
> shell-init: could not get current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent 
> directories: Permission denied
> out exp differ: char 1, line 1
> 1,3c1
> < shell-init: could not get current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent 
> directories: Permission denied
> < rm: cannot unlink `a/b': Operation not permitted
> < rm: cannot remove directory `a': Directory not empty
> ---
>> rm: cannot remove `a/b': Operation not permitted
> FAIL: fail-2eperm
>
> This problem seems to have two parts.
>
> First the shell whining occurs because the arbitrary user the test
> selects does not have execute access to the build directories.  I can
> suppress it by making sure all directories from root to "test" are world
> writable, and setting umask to 0 (normally 077) before running the test.
>
> Second, the incorrect output appears to be caused by "su" resetting the
> PATH= variable.  This removes the just-built executables from the search
> path, so that the test actually runs the existing version of "rm" (in my
> case from fileutils-4.1), instead of the new version.  Since the semantics
> have apparently changed a bit since 4.1, the test fails.

Thank you both for reporting that.
It will be addressed by the change for this item from the TODO file:

  Apply suggestion from Paul Jarc to use something along the
  lines of http://cr.yp.to/daemontools/setuidgid.html to avoid
  kludges (as in tests/rm/fail-2eperm) when running tests as root.