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Bug 812092 - libguestfs cannot open disk images which are symlinks to files that contain ':' (colon) character
Summary: libguestfs cannot open disk images which are symlinks to files that contain '...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
Classification: Red Hat
Component: libguestfs
Version: 6.3
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: rc
: ---
Assignee: Richard W.M. Jones
QA Contact: Virtualization Bugs
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On: 811649
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-04-12 18:12 UTC by Richard W.M. Jones
Modified: 2012-06-20 07:01 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

Fixed In Version: libguestfs-1.16.18-2.el6
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Cause: qemu cannot open any disk image file that contains a ':' character. In addition, there were various bugs in libguestfs's handling and escaping of special characters in filenames. Consequence: libguestfs would sometimes invoke qemu incorrectly resulting in qemu failing to run, and libguestfs itself would sometimes refuse to open a disk image file even though it ought to be able to. Fix: All of the bugs in handling of filenames have been fixed. Result: Any filename can now be opened, except filenames that contains a ':' character (because qemu cannot open these: there is no fix for this qemu bug). libguestfs gives correct diagnostic messages when presented with a filename that contains a ':' character, and doesn't complain about any other character.
Clone Of: 811649
Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-06-20 07:01:53 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Attachments (Terms of Use)


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Product Errata RHSA-2012:0774 0 normal SHIPPED_LIVE Low: libguestfs security, bug fix, and enhancement update 2012-06-19 19:29:50 UTC

Description Richard W.M. Jones 2012-04-12 18:12:45 UTC 
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #811649 +++

Reported by Igor Lvovsky.  This affects RHEV-M, so is important.

libguestfs cannot open a disk image where the file is a
symlink to a filename that contains a colon character.
Example:

  $ qemu-img create -f qcow2 normal 1G
  $ mv normal contains:colon
  $ ln -s contains\:colon symlink
  $ ls -l contains\:colon symlink 
  -rw-r--r--. 1 rjones rjones 197120 Apr 12 19:07 contains:colon
  lrwxrwxrwx. 1 rjones rjones     14 Apr 12 19:08 symlink -> contains:colon
  $ guestfish -a symlink run
  $ echo $?
  1

There are two, related problems.

(1) It is not possible to specify a filename that contains a
colon character on the qemu command line.  This is simply a bug
in qemu.

(2) libguestfs normalizes paths by calling 'realpath(3)'.

In the example above, (2) converts the filename 'symlink' to
a qemu command line option such as:

  qemu-kvm -drive file=/tmp/contains:colon,...

and that cannot be opened by qemu because of (1).

If we didn't normalize the paths, then this we wouldn't hit the
qemu problem, because the filename 'symlink' doesn't contain a
colon character.

It turns out that RHEV paths are always symlinks to filenames
that contain colons, so this bug especially affects RHEV.

Note also that this is a regression over RHEL 6.2.
Comment 2 Richard W.M. Jones 2012-04-12 18:36:03 UTC 
Patch series posted here:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2012-April/msg00060.html
Comment 3 Richard W.M. Jones 2012-04-13 07:33:45 UTC 
The regression test had a bug so a fifth patch is also needed:
https://github.com/libguestfs/libguestfs/commit/4b0e525d1dcabe5ffc9b323103ee757be397abb0
Comment 5 Yuyu Zhou 2012-04-18 08:44:12 UTC 
Verified with libguestfs-tools-1.16.18-2.el6.x86_64.

Before fix (libguestfs-tools-1.16.15-1.el6.x86_64):
1. a symlink (which does not contain colon) to a filename that contains a colon.
# qemu-img create -f qcow2 normal 1G
# mv normal contains:colon
# ln -s contains\:colon symlink
# guestfish -a symlink run
# echo $?
1

2. a symlink (whick contains conlon) to a filename that does not contains a colon.
# dd if=/dev/zero of=test1.img bs=1M count=10
10+0 records in
10+0 records out
10485760 bytes (10 MB) copied, 0.0162689 s, 645 MB/s
# ln -s test1.img file:file
# guestfish -a file\:file run
# echo $?
0

3. a filename contains a colon
# cp test1.img test1:1.img
# guestfish -a test1\:1.img run
# echo $?
1

After fix:
1. a symlink (which does not contain colon) to a filename that contains a colon.
# qemu-img create -f qcow2 normal 1G
# mv normal contains:colon
# ln -s contains\:colon symlink
# guestfish -a symlink run
# echo $?
0

2. a symlink (whick contains conlon) to a filename that does not contains a colon. (proper error message shows up)
# dd if=/dev/zero of=test1.img bs=1M count=10
10+0 records in
10+0 records out
10485760 bytes (10 MB) copied, 0.0162689 s, 645 MB/s
# ln -s test1.img file:file
# guestfish -a file\:file run
libguestfs: error: filename cannot contain ':' (colon) character. This is a limitation of qemu.

3. a filename contains a colon. (proper error message shows up)
# cp test1.img test1:1.img
# guestfish -a test1\:1.img run
libguestfs: error: filename cannot contain ':' (colon) character. This is a limitation of qemu.
Comment 6 Richard W.M. Jones 2012-04-26 13:52:49 UTC 
    Technical note added. If any revisions are required, please edit the "Technical Notes" field
    accordingly. All revisions will be proofread by the Engineering Content Services team.
    
    New Contents:
Cause:
qemu cannot open any disk image file that contains a ':' character.  In addition, there were various bugs in libguestfs's handling and escaping of special characters in filenames.

Consequence:
libguestfs would sometimes invoke qemu incorrectly resulting in qemu failing to run, and libguestfs itself would sometimes refuse to open a disk image file even though it ought to be able to.

Fix:
All of the bugs in handling of filenames have been fixed.

Result:
Any filename can now be opened, except filenames that contains a ':' character (because qemu cannot open these: there is no fix for this qemu bug).  libguestfs gives correct diagnostic messages when presented with a filename that contains a ':' character, and doesn't complain about any other character.
Comment 8 errata-xmlrpc 2012-06-20 07:01:53 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.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2012-0774.html
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