Debian Bug report logs - #403304
bashdb: bash --debugger doesn't start the debugger

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Lionel Elie Mamane <lionel@mamane.lu>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: bashdb: bash --debugger doesn't start the debugger

Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2006 06:04:59 +0100

Package: bashdb
Version: 3.1.0.7-1
Severity: normal

The documentation says:

 There are in fact two other ways to start the BASH debugger. The first
 way is to pass the `--debugger' option to bash with the name of your
 script the scripts arguments following that, (...)

  bash --debugger script script-arguments...

But this doesn't work; it just runs the script, not entering the debugger.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-3-amd64
Locale: LANG=fr_LU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_LU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages bashdb depends on:
ii  bash                          3.1dfsg-8  The GNU Bourne Again SHell
ii  emacsen-common                1.4.17     Common facilities for all emacsen

bashdb recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

Message #14 received at 403304@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Oleksandr Moskalenko <malex@debian.org>

To: Lionel Elie Mamane <lionel@mamane.lu>, 403304@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#403304: bashdb: bash --debugger doesn't start the debugger

Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:44:31 -0700

* Lionel Elie Mamane <lionel@mamane.lu> [2006-12-16 06:04:59 +0100]:

> Package: bashdb
> Version: 3.1.0.7-1
> Severity: normal
> 
> The documentation says:
> 
>  There are in fact two other ways to start the BASH debugger. The first
>  way is to pass the `--debugger' option to bash with the name of your
>  script the scripts arguments following that, (...)
> 
>   bash --debugger script script-arguments...
> 
> But this doesn't work; it just runs the script, not entering the debugger.
> 
> -- System Information:
> Debian Release: 4.0
>   APT prefers unstable
>   APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
> Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
> Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
> Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-3-amd64
> Locale: LANG=fr_LU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_LU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
> 
> Versions of packages bashdb depends on:
> ii  bash                          3.1dfsg-8  The GNU Bourne Again SHell
> ii  emacsen-common                1.4.17     Common facilities for all emacsen
> 
> bashdb recommends no packages.
> 
> -- no debconf information

Lionel,

This bug is on the bash side. It should be fixed soon I hope. Right now you
can fix it temporarily by making a symlink from
/usr/local/lib/bashdb/bashdb-main.inc to /usr/share/bashdb/dbg-main.inc (ln -s
/usr/share/bashdb/dbg-main.inc /usr/local/lib/bashdb/bashdb-main.inc).

Regards,

Alex.

Message #23 received at 403304@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Evgeny Stambulchik <fnevgeny@weizmann.ac.il>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <403304@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: bash: Is it going to be fixed?

Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:32:48 +0200

Package: bash
Version: 3.1dfsg-8
Followup-For: Bug #403304


$ strings /bin/bash |grep bashdb
/usr/local/lib/bashdb/bashdb-main.inc

$ ls -ld /usr/share/bashdb
ls: /usr/share/bashdb: No such file or directory
$ ls -ld /usr/lib/bashdb
ls: /usr/lib/bashdb: No such file or directory

Also, mind you, this is a (weak) security issue: files under /usr/local
are typically under a looser security control, so invoking bash debugger
may result in unpredictable things. 

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.17.2
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages bash depends on:
ii  base-files             4                 Debian base system miscellaneous f
ii  debianutils            2.17              Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  libc6                  2.3.6.ds1-13etch2 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libncurses5            5.5-5             Shared libraries for terminal hand

bash recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

Message #28 received at 403304@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Stéphane Aulery <lkppo@free.fr>

To: 403304@bugs.debian.org

Subject: bashdb: bash --debugger doesn't start the debugger

Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 00:03:48 +0200

Upstream comments:

This is a common installation problem where the bash executable points
to a place different than bashdb is installed. Basically you want to run
strings `which bash` | grep bashdb
and make sure that file points to the installed dbg-main.inc 

http://sourceforge.net/p/bashdb/bugs/8/#2906

-- 
Stéphane Aulery

Message #33 received at 403304@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Nicholas Bamber <nicholas@periapt.co.uk>

To: 403304@bugs.debian.org, Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org>, bug-bash@gnu.org, Oleksandr Moskalenko <malex@debian.org>

Subject: Debian: bash --debugger doesn't start the debugger

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2015 21:16:12 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

My investigations indicate that it is still true that as per Debian bug 
report (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=403304) 
--debugger does NOT start the debugger UNLESS the debugged script has a 
$1. For example

/bin/bash --debugger --  ~/scripts/ex1.sh

will just run the script but

/bin/bash --debugger --  ~/scripts/ex1.sh  XXX

will enter the debugger. To comment on the other prior information on 
the Debian bug report:

1. The upstream bashdb developer is correct that checking "strings 
`which bash` | grep bashdb" is a good test for whether bash will find 
bashdb-main.inc, but this is not relevant to Debian becase this is set 
correctly in Debian's case.
2. If you take an upstream tarball of bash and compile it then even the 
extra $1 will not make the debugger run under that bash, unless you link 
the upsteram location of '/usr/local/share/bashdb' to the Debian value 
of /usr/share/bashdb.

In other words the other commenters were correct but had not got to the 
root issue. The root issue is appears to be this line in shell.c in the 
bash code:

  if (debugging_mode && locally_skip_execution == 0 && running_setuid 
== 0 && dollar_vars[1])
    start_debugger ();

I enclose a patch that I believe would address this, and suggest it is 
an upstream bash issue.

[bashdb_fix.patch (text/x-diff, attachment)]

Message #46 received at 403304@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu>

To: Nicholas Bamber <nicholas@periapt.co.uk>, 403304@bugs.debian.org, Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org>, bug-bash@gnu.org, Oleksandr Moskalenko <malex@debian.org>

Cc: chet.ramey@case.edu

Subject: Re: Debian: bash --debugger doesn't start the debugger

Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 09:10:10 -0400

On 10/12/15 4:16 PM, Nicholas Bamber wrote:
> My investigations indicate that it is still true that as per Debian bug
> report (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=403304)
> --debugger does NOT start the debugger UNLESS the debugged script has a $1.

We discussed this in a thread on bug-bash back in April:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2015-04/msg00183.html

This discussion references an earlier bug report concerning whether the
--debugger option should produce an error if the bashdb script is not
installed.  There is also an issue with bashdb misbehaving when run in
an interactive shell; that was the reason for the check of $1 in the
first place.

Part of that thread explains why a check of $0 is not correct: since $0
is always set, a check for it has no effect.

The final change that solves both problems went into the bash development
branch in early May, and will be in bash-4.4.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/

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