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Bug 1424989

Summary: file command misinterprets text as python excuteable code
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Reporter: Yogita <ysoni>
Component: fileAssignee: Kamil Dudka <kdudka>
Status: CLOSED CANTFIX QA Contact: BaseOS QE Security Team <qe-baseos-security>
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 7.3CC: kdudka
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: Unspecified   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2017-07-24 11:26:44 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:    
Bug Blocks: 1420851    

Description Yogita 2017-02-20 09:30:56 UTC
Description of problem:
The file program misinterprets some text files as python scripts.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
file-5.11-31.el7.x86_64

How reproducible:
The bug can be reproduced using any file editor as follow -

Steps to Reproduce:
Create a file , eg- new.txt using any edit with 3 double quotes -

# cat new.txt
"""

Now test the type of file using "file" command -

# file new.txt

Actual results:
new.txt: Python script, ASCII text executable

Expected results:
new.txt: ASCII text

Additional info:

Comment 2 Kamil Dudka 2017-02-20 13:30:18 UTC
(In reply to Yogita from comment #0)
> # cat new.txt
> """

For files beginning with """, such a classification is expected.  This is the corresponding magic entry from latest upstream:

    # often the module starts with a multiline string
    0   string/t    """ Python script text executable

Luckily, files starting with """ is not what the customer complained about.

I tried the original reproducer and, in that case, the result seems incorrect, or at least less correct than the result of upstream file(1).  The difference is caused by file-5.10-strength.patch, which was introduced to fix bug #772651.

I propose to remove the patch from Fedora, which will fix this bug in RHEL-8 eventually.  On the other hand, I am afraid that changing the behavior of file(1) in a minor update of RHEL-7 could be disruptive for other customers.

Comment 3 Kamil Dudka 2017-02-23 15:25:37 UTC
fixed in file-5.30-4.fc26

Comment 4 Kamil Dudka 2017-07-24 11:26:44 UTC
Changing the behavior of the file command in a minor update of RHEL could break systems that rely on the current behavior.  The fix for this bug is included in Fedora 26 and it is going to be included in the next major release of RHEL.