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Description of problem:

For certain UTF8 string lengths systemd-run fails to run a command in a separate machine

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

- CentOS 7.4
- systemd-219-42.el7_4.4.x86_64
- Linux vm5.dpnet.nethesis.it 3.10.0-693.11.6.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Jan 4 01:06:37 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

How reproducible:

always

Steps to Reproduce:

1. prepare the container chroot:
   yum -y --releasever=/ --installroot=/var/lib/machines/c1 install bash systemd

2. spawn a container:
   /usr/bin/systemd-nspawn --boot --machine=c1 -D /var/lib/machines/c1

3. open a new terminal and run the script:
 
   for ((I=1; I<10; I++)); do USERNAME=$(printf 'à%.0s' `seq 1 $I`); systemd-run -M c1 -q -t /usr/bin/echo $I $USERNAME; done

Actual results:

1 à
2 àà
3 ààà
4 àààà
5 ààààà
Failed to start transient service unit: Message did not receive a reply (timeout by message bus)

Expected results (with "a" instead of "à"):

1 a
2 aa
3 aaa
4 aaaa
5 aaaaa
6 aaaaaa
7 aaaaaaa
8 aaaaaaaa
9 aaaaaaaaa

Additional info:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Running in KVM
This bug was originally reported here:

https://github.com/NethServer/dev/issues/5400

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/8056

Meanwhile, an obvious thing to do is: don't do it.

Apparently, this has been fixed in https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/2e59b241ca86b8338c706a7a704d301fde908581.

After evaluating this issue, there are no plans to address it further or fix it in an upcoming release.  Therefore, it is being closed.  If plans change such that this issue will be fixed in an upcoming release, then the bug can be reopened.