[Bug 1711254] Re: 16.04.3 deployments include non-existent directories in $PATH

[Jeff Lane]

@Steve, I don't disagree, and I've already merged a patch to fix that
issue in the cert suite.

For context, what happens isn't a test case, but a resource that
enumerates the binaries in the system so that the suite can validate
requirements for executing the tests.

e.g., it enumerates a list that contains "/usr/bin/iperf3" for example,
and the network test then has a constraint to only execute if
"/usr/bin/iperf3" actually exists.

The failure was that the enumeration just executes a 'find', the example
noted in the summary is almost exactly the command the resource job
uses, and find exits with a fail code because the directories listed in
$PATH didn't exist.  I couldn't find a way to tell find to simply ignore
non-existent things, without turning a shell oneliner into a more
complex script, so in the end, the resource job now always returns
"true" regardless of the exit code from 'find'.

But since customers started voicing concern about it, and because it
just seemed odd to me for us to be automatically injecting false data
into $PATH (for whatever reason, I read the bug Adam pointed out, and I
can understand now why this happened) I thought it was worth raising a
bug, even if the ultimate answer is "there were reasons for doing it
that couldn't be avoided".

** Description changed:

  Noticed this while doing regression testing on 16.04.3, and a number of
  customers have asked with concerns as well during their testing.
  
  I don't know exactly when this started, but we just started noticing it
  with 16.04.3 (4.10) but $PATH by default now includes several
  directories that do not exist:
  
- 
- ubuntu at above-ox:~$ find $(echo "$PATH" | sed -e 's/:/ /g') -maxdepth 1 -type dfind: ‘/home/ubuntu/bin’: No such file or directory
+ ubuntu at above-ox:~$ find $(echo "$PATH" | sed -e 's/:/ /g') -maxdepth 1 -type d
+ find: ‘/home/ubuntu/bin’: No such file or directory
  find: ‘/home/ubuntu/.local/bin’: No such file or directory
  /usr/local/sbin
  /usr/local/bin
  /usr/sbin
  /usr/bin
  /sbin
  /bin
  /usr/games
  /usr/local/games
  find: ‘/snap/bin’: No such file or directory
  
  We noticed this because it was causing a resource job in the
  certification suite to suddenly start failing (the failure was not
  catastrophic, but it did appear to customers who were concerned.
  
  I've verified this on both s390x and amd64 16.04.3 deployments via MAAS
  2.2.
  
  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
  Package: linux-image-4.10.0-32-generic 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1-generic 4.10.17
  Uname: Linux 4.10.0-32-generic s390x
  ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.10
  Architecture: s390x
  Date: Wed Aug 16 18:59:34 2017
  ProcEnviron:
-  TERM=xterm
-  PATH=(custom, no user)
-  XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
-  LANG=en.US_UTF-8
-  SHELL=/bin/bash
+  TERM=xterm
+  PATH=(custom, no user)
+  XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
+  LANG=en.US_UTF-8
+  SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: linux-hwe
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1711254

Title:
  16.04.3 deployments include non-existent directories in $PATH

Status in bash package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in snapd package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Noticed this while doing regression testing on 16.04.3, and a number
  of customers have asked with concerns as well during their testing.

  I don't know exactly when this started, but we just started noticing
  it with 16.04.3 (4.10) but $PATH by default now includes several
  directories that do not exist:

  ubuntu at above-ox:~$ find $(echo "$PATH" | sed -e 's/:/ /g') -maxdepth 1 -type d
  find: ‘/home/ubuntu/bin’: No such file or directory
  find: ‘/home/ubuntu/.local/bin’: No such file or directory
  /usr/local/sbin
  /usr/local/bin
  /usr/sbin
  /usr/bin
  /sbin
  /bin
  /usr/games
  /usr/local/games
  find: ‘/snap/bin’: No such file or directory

  We noticed this because it was causing a resource job in the
  certification suite to suddenly start failing (the failure was not
  catastrophic, but it did appear to customers who were concerned.

  I've verified this on both s390x and amd64 16.04.3 deployments via
  MAAS 2.2.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
  Package: linux-image-4.10.0-32-generic 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1-generic 4.10.17
  Uname: Linux 4.10.0-32-generic s390x
  ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.10
  Architecture: s390x
  Date: Wed Aug 16 18:59:34 2017
  ProcEnviron:
   TERM=xterm
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en.US_UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: linux-hwe
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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