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Bug 1579764 - Running 'sudo -s' gives 'error': mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/user/.local’: Permission denied
Summary: Running 'sudo -s' gives 'error': mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/user/....
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
Classification: Red Hat
Component: kde-settings
Version: 7.5
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
unspecified
low
Target Milestone: rc
: ---
Assignee: Jan Grulich
QA Contact: Desktop QE
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks: 1479323 1656436
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2018-05-18 09:35 UTC by James Pearson
Modified: 2023-03-24 14:05 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version: kde-settings-19-23.9.el7
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2019-08-06 12:57:16 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Product Errata RHSA-2019:2141 0 None None None 2019-08-06 12:57:26 UTC

Description James Pearson 2018-05-18 09:35:12 UTC 
Description of problem:

Running 'sudo -s' gives the error/warning :

mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/user/.local’: Permission denied

(where /home/user/ is the home directory of the user running sudo

The sudo command works fine - as user becomes root (in this case)


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

kde-settings-19-23.7.el7

How reproducible:

Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Run 'sudo -s'


Actual results:

mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/user/.local’: Permission denied

Expected results:

No error message

Additional info:

The problem was introduced in bug 1404382 - as /etc/profile.d/kde.csh and kde.sh now does:

# Fix the user-places.xbel error pop at first user login
if ( ! -d ${HOME}/.local/share ) then
    mkdir -p ${HOME}/.local/share
endif

and:

# Fix the user-places.xbel error pop at first user login
if [ ! -d $HOME/.local/share ]; then
    mkdir -p $HOME/.local/share
fi

We have 'Defaults !env_reset' in /etc/sudoers and users' home directories are NFS mounted plus the local root user doesn't have r/w access to users'
~/.local/ directories

The simple fix is to just redirect the mkdir stderr/stdout to /dev/null - and/or also check $SUDO_USER is not set/empty
Comment 2 Steve Traylen 2018-07-13 09:58:31 UTC 
You can produce the same error whenever HOME is not set. e.g.

$ env   -u HOME bash -l -c 'echo "home is ${HOME}"'
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/.local’: Permission denied
home is
Comment 3 Steve Traylen 2018-07-13 11:17:15 UTC 
Indeed this is not the way to solve bug 1404382 , kde should create the directories itself.
Comment 11 errata-xmlrpc 2019-08-06 12:57:16 UTC 
Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2019:2141
Comment 12 Steve Huston 2019-08-27 18:40:34 UTC 
This fix seems to have broken startup scripts for csh/tcsh users due to using [ ] instead of ( ) :

erigone:~/foo/etc/profile.d# diff -urN kde.csh /etc/profile.d/kde.csh
--- kde.csh     2019-08-27 14:37:03.222817544 -0400
+++ /etc/profile.d/kde.csh      2019-08-14 04:22:09.000000000 -0400
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 end
 
 # Fix the user-places.xbel error pop at first user login
-if ( ! -d ${HOME}/.local/share ) then
+if [ ! -d ${HOME}/.local/share -a -w ${HOME} ] then
     mkdir -p ${HOME}/.local/share
 endif

erigone:~# su - tcshuser
Last login: Tue Aug 27 14:20:29 EDT 2019 on pts/29
if: Expression Syntax.
[tcshuser@erigone ~]$ foreach S ( /etc/profile.d/*.csh )
foreach? echo $S
foreach? source $S
foreach? end
/etc/profile.d/256term.csh
/etc/profile.d/astro.csh
/etc/profile.d/cobbler.csh
/etc/profile.d/colorgrep.csh
/etc/profile.d/colorls.csh
/etc/profile.d/cvs.csh
/etc/profile.d/gnome-ssh-askpass.csh
/etc/profile.d/kde.csh
if: Expression Syntax.
/etc/profile.d/lang.csh
/etc/profile.d/less.csh
/etc/profile.d/mc.csh
/etc/profile.d/modules.csh
/etc/profile.d/puppet-agent.csh
/etc/profile.d/qt-graphicssystem.csh
/etc/profile.d/qt.csh
/etc/profile.d/vim.csh
/etc/profile.d/which2.csh
[tcshuser@erigone ~]$ source .cshrc
erigone:~>
Comment 13 Steve Huston 2019-08-27 18:51:37 UTC 
This seems to be the proper syntax (forgot about using && instead of -a as well):

--- kde.csh.1   2019-08-27 14:44:47.141991394 -0400
+++ kde.csh.2   2019-08-27 14:49:37.950857442 -0400
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 end
 
 # Fix the user-places.xbel error pop at first user login
-if [ ! -d ${HOME}/.local/share -a -w ${HOME} ] then
+if ( ! -d ${HOME}/.local/share && -w ${HOME} ) then
     mkdir -p ${HOME}/.local/share
 endif
Comment 14 James Pearson 2019-08-28 10:31:14 UTC 
(In reply to Steve Huston from comment #12)
> This fix seems to have broken startup scripts for csh/tcsh users due to
> using [ ] instead of ( ) :

That's a pretty fundamental error - how did that slip past QA ???
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