bug#32478: pcscd service activation causes boot failure

[Chris Marusich]

Hi,

Commit de30205ba0f63eb987097a9f47b6e4fd38cd9044 added a pcscd service
(hooray!).  However, its activation procedure doesn't always work.  The
system test passes, and the activation procedure works the first time
you boot, but if you reboot, it will fail because the symlink it creates
already exists.  The attached patch fixes the problem.

To reproduce the bug, use the attached operating system configuration
file (bare-bones.scm), and run:

  guix system vm-image bare-bones.scm

This takes a long time to finish (up to a few hours, depending on your
system).  Once it's done, copy the image out of the store:

  cp $the_store_path /tmp/qemu-image

Then run it:

  sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -smp cpus=1 -net user -net nic,model=virtio 
-enable-kvm  -m 2048 /tmp/qemu-image 

Observe how the VM boots successfully.  Now log in as root (no password)
and reboot.  Observe that the boot process fails now because the symlink
created by the pcscd activation service already exists.

The attached patch fixes the issue by using an idempotent procedure to
create the symlink.  If there are no objections, I'll push the patch to
master about 24 hours from now.  There is a fairly long comment in my
patch because although I wanted to re-use the switch-symlinks procedure
from (guix utils), I couldn't figure out how to do it.  Ideas regarding
this are welcome!  To be specific, I tried to use (guix utils), but then
I got the following error message at boot time (see my comment for more
information):

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
loading '/gnu/store/f4ng1dlpm7q74vssbb049vpf2gvw3n3r-system/boot'...
[    2.175072] random: fast init done
making '/gnu/store/f4ng1dlpm7q74vssbb049vpf2gvw3n3r-system' the current system..
.
setting up setuid programs in '/run/setuid-programs'...
populating /etc from /gnu/store/n6cwz1hlmjylva2xrv61njl68g6c8k5l-etc...
usermod: no changes
usermod: no changes
usermod: no changes
ERROR: In procedure dynamic-func:
In procedure dynamic-pointer: Symbol not found: strverscmp

Entering a new prompt.  Type `,bt' for a backtrace or `,q' to continue.
GNU Guile 2.2.3
Copyright (C) 1995-2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Guile comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `,show w'.
This program is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
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Enter `,help' for help.
scheme@(guix utils)> ,bt
In gnu/build/linux-boot.scm:
   530:13 22 (_)
In unknown file:
          21 (primitive-load "/gnu/store/f4ng1dlpm7q74vssbb049vpf2gv·")
In ice-9/eval.scm:
    619:8 20 (_ #f)
In unknown file:
          19 (primitive-load "/gnu/store/b6yg0pkp835a3zky9sj53yyjxac·")
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
   260:13 18 (for-each #<procedure primitive-load (_)> _)
In unknown file:
          17 (primitive-load "/gnu/store/v42zaw2hjwxy5wnd0dwa6j245nr·")
In ice-9/eval.scm:
   721:20 16 (primitive-eval (begin (use-modules (guix build #) #) ·))
In ice-9/psyntax.scm:
  1235:36 15 (expand-top-sequence ((begin (use-modules (# # ·) ·) ·)) ·)
  1182:24 14 (parse _ (("placeholder" placeholder)) ((top) #(# # ·)) ·)
  1182:24 13 (parse _ (("placeholder" placeholder)) ((top) #(# # ·)) ·)
   285:10 12 (parse _ (("placeholder" placeholder)) (()) _ c&e (eval) ·)
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
  3365:20 11 (process-use-modules _)
   222:29 10 (map1 (((guix build utils)) ((guix utils))))
   222:17  9 (map1 (((guix utils))))
  3366:31  8 (_ ((guix utils)))
  2788:17  7 (resolve-interface (guix utils) #:select _ #:hide _ # _ ·)
  2714:10  6 (_ (guix utils) _ _ #:ensure _)
  2982:16  5 (try-module-autoload _ _)
   2312:4  4 (save-module-excursion #<procedure 2de04e0 at ice-9/boo·>)
  3002:22  3 (_)
In unknown file:
           2 (primitive-load-path "guix/utils" #<procedure 2abb480 a·>)
In guix/utils.scm:
   485:24  1 (_)
In unknown file:
           0 (dynamic-func "strverscmp" #<dynamic-object #f>)
scheme@(guix utils)> [   53.048203] random: crng init done
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

To be clear, the above stack trace is NOT related to the bug I am
reporting.  It's just a different problem that made it difficult to
re-use switch-symlinks from (guix utils), which is why in my fix I
decided to just copy the switch-symlinks definition verbatim.

-- 
Chris

bare-bones.scm
Description: Binary data

0001-gnu-services-Fix-pcscd-activation-bug.patch
Description: Text Data

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature