Bug 229360

Summary:	xterm unsets $TMPDIR before executing command/shell
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	James Ralston <ralston>
Component:	xterm	Assignee:	Miroslav Lichvar <mlichvar>
Status:	CLOSED ERRATA	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	8	CC:	martin.gutschelhofer, peter, sandmann
Target Milestone:	---	Keywords:	Reopened
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:	231-1.fc8	Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2008-01-24 21:45:31 UTC	Type:	---
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:	246063
Bug Blocks:

Description James Ralston 2007-02-20 16:35:39 UTC

Starting with xterm-223-2.fc6.src.rpm, xterm unsets TMPDIR before invoking the
shell:

$ echo $TMPDIR
/tmp/username-j22290

$ export TMPDIR

$ echo $TMPDIR
/tmp/username-j22290

$ xterm -e 'echo TMPDIR=$TMPDIR; sleep 5'

The output that appears in the resulting xterm is:

TMPDIR=

If I compare the behavior of xterm to gnome-terminal, the only real difference
in the environment of the shell is TMPDIR.  (The environment variables
COLORTERM, PPID, and WINDOWID differ, but that's to be expected.)

I don't see any [un]setenv calls in xterm's code, so I suspect some other
library call that xterm is using is having a side-effect of unsetting TMPDIR.

Comment 1 James Ralston 2007-02-20 16:38:03 UTC

Actually, it doesn't matter whether xterm

Comment 2 Miroslav Lichvar 2007-02-21 14:39:01 UTC

Dynamic linker is unsetting the variable since the xterm binary has setgid
utempter. Without the setgid xterm won't have a record in utmp.

But you can put the setting to .bashrc.

Comment 3 Miroslav Lichvar 2007-06-07 14:51:11 UTC

*** Bug 243069 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4 Peter TB Brett 2007-06-07 16:02:41 UTC

This *is* a bug, and should be re-opened as such.

"Putting the setting to .bashrc" is a kludgy workaround, not a fix, especially 
for variables like LD_LIBRARY_PATH which a user might want set for the entire 
session.  In fact, all the documentation recommends *against* setting 
variables in .bashrc & /etc/bashrc.  

One better solution would be to use a wrapper script which restores the 
environment.  Is there any way to get records in utmp using e.g. SELinux 
context rather than group?

(Another workaround is to use module-init-tools and add "module update" 
to /etc/bashrc).

Comment 5 Miroslav Lichvar 2007-06-28 09:21:34 UTC

The problem was recently discussed at fedora-devel list. A request against
libutempter to drop the setgid requirement is filed at bug #246063.

Comment 6 Miroslav Lichvar 2007-09-19 12:11:44 UTC

*** Bug 296131 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7 Fedora Update System 2008-01-11 22:15:30 UTC

xterm-231-1.fc8 has been pushed to the Fedora 8 testing repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
 If you want to test the update, you can install it with 
 su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update xterm'

Comment 8 Fedora Update System 2008-01-11 22:29:10 UTC

xterm-231-1.fc7 has been pushed to the Fedora 7 testing repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
 If you want to test the update, you can install it with 
 su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update xterm'

Comment 9 Fedora Update System 2008-01-24 21:45:29 UTC

xterm-231-1.fc8 has been pushed to the Fedora 8 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 10 Fedora Update System 2008-01-24 21:56:56 UTC

xterm-231-1.fc7 has been pushed to the Fedora 7 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.