Lossy conversion is harmful
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- Dominant language
- Rust
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Description
The lossy conversions used by many programs is (almost?) always incorrect.
One of the more severe misbehaviors can be seen with the following users:
$ useradd --badname $(printf 'test\xC2user')
$ useradd --badname $(printf 'test\xEF\xBF\xBDuser')
$ id $(printf 'test\xC2user')
uid=1001(test�user) gid=1001(test�user) groups=1001(test�user)
$ id $(printf 'test\xEF\xBF\xBDuser')
uid=1002(test�user) gid=1002(test�user) groups=1002(test�user)
Anytime that uutils converts a UID to a username it will print the incorrect user which can be seen with id:
$ uu-id $(uu-id -un 1001)
uid=1002(test�user) gid=1002(test�user) groups=1002(test�user)
GNU returns the correct user:
$ id $(id -un 1001)
uid=1001(test�user) gid=1001(test�user) groups=1001(test�user)
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reproducing the issue with the shown useradd, id, and uu-id commands, then trace the UID-to-username lookup used by uu-id and id. Confirm how invalid or lossy name conversion causes distinct usernames to collide. Done means the uutils commands return the same distinct user as GNU coreutils for the demonstrated UIDs.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- cli, operating-systems
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 42/100