Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2022 11:21:24 +0200
From: Natanael Copa <ncopa@alpinelinux.org>
To: "Daniel F. Dickinson" <dfdpublic@wildtechgarden.ca>
Cc: ~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org
Subject: Re: Fixing shell script libraries like /lib/libalpine.sh
Message-ID: <20220701112124.7cd30d2e@ncopa-desktop.lan>
In-Reply-To: <4caa8c5f-7ebf-ad2f-0e92-29428785fe60@wildtechgarden.ca>
References: <4caa8c5f-7ebf-ad2f-0e92-29428785fe60@wildtechgarden.ca>
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On Thu, 30 Jun 2022 02:16:49 -0400
"Daniel F. Dickinson" <dfdpublic@wildtechgarden.ca> wrote:

> Hello,
>=20
> I've noticed some issues with the Alpine shell script libraries (one
> example below)[1]
>=20
> I'm new to Alpine but not to Linux, *BSD, or (way back) Ultrix, and have
> not (yet) dug into the Alpine code base and infrastructure. (Although I
> have my 'notes-to-self' documentation[2] that I intend (RSN...) to
> integrate into the Wiki and have published on my website).
>=20
> My questions with respect to the issues mentioned are:
>=20
> 1. Do you prefer the GitLab merge request interface or the mailing list
> for patches?[3]

gitlab.
=20
> 2. If you are not already using tools like shellcheck / shellfmt and or
> shell unit tests in your CI, do you have objections to such being added?

as long as it does not=20
=20
> I'm hoping to spend some time fixing this type of issue as they result
> in annoying hiccups when trying to automate setup-alpine, and I'd like
> that to work well.

I'm working on the testsuite to add tests to make sure setup-alpine
works with an "answer file".

> A final note: I've got some cloud-init image creation using Packer
> that I soon intend to push to public repository, along with Terraform
> usage of the same; is there interest in those here? I almost forgot;
> what is the status the work on the 'tiny' cloud-init substitute or
> other alternatives in Alpine?

I intend to make some kind of tiny-cloud nocloud provider, which will
be able to take some sort of cloud-init compatible config for
unattended installs.


> Regards,
>=20
> Daniel
>=20
>=20
> [1]:
>=20
> # test the first argument against the remaining ones, return success
> on a match
> isin() {
> =A0=A0 =A0local _a=3D$1 _b
> =A0=A0 =A0shift
> =A0=A0 =A0for _b; do
> =A0=A0 =A0=A0=A0=A0 [ "$_a" =3D "$_b" ] && return 0
> =A0=A0 =A0done
> =A0=A0 =A0return 1
> }
>=20
> _b is never assigned a value.

This is not true.

    for _b; do ...

is equivalent to

    for _b in "$@"; do ...

So `isin "$resp" busybox openntpd chrony none abort; do` will iterate over
"busybox openntpd chrony none abort" and return 0 (success) if $resp is
in the listed options or 1 (failure) otherwise.

See
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#t=
ag_18_09_04_03

> This is why automating ntp setup fails
> (specifically the following code in /sbin/setup-ntp) will never skip
> the 'ask':
>=20
> while [ $# -eq 0 ] && ! isin "$resp" busybox openntpd chrony none abort; =
do
> =A0=A0 =A0ask "Which NTP client to run? ('busybox', 'openntpd', 'chrony' =
or
> 'none')" chrony
> done

I believe there is other problem.
(I noticed you filed a bug. I will have a look at it)

-nc