Several users have had trouble with the environment file for Sun JDK version 1.3.1.04 [1]. Two forum threads describe users encountering this problem, [2], and [3]. There was also a bug report filed [4], but it has since been resolved as invalid, as the ebuild in question was removed from portage long ago. Basic break down is: if LD_ASSUME_KERNEL is set in /etc/env.d/java/20SomeJVM-0.0.0 it has the potential to render a system unusable. I don't know how this happens specifically since I'm not aware of how the different files for dynamic libs are generated, but the end result was the user's dynamic libs were broken. Point is: be careful what you put in a JVM's environment file. I think a bug should be filed against env-update to filter out or somehow decide whether something in the environment is going to destroy a users dynamic libraries. References: [1] http://www.gentoo.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/dev-java/sun-jdk/files/Attic/sun-jdk-1.3.1.04?r ev=HEAD&root=gentoo-x86&content-type=text/plain [2] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=198170 [3] http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=119706 [4] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58088 Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Have a java developer accidentally set LD_ASSUME_KERNEL for some reason 2. java-config doesn't recognize the variable as anything special so it throws it into the generated /etc/env.d/20java 3. user runs "env-update && source /etc/profile" Actual Results: User's system is broken. Expected Results: env-update should exit and complain that /etc/env.d/20java is setting a potentially harmful environment variable and a -f flag should be used to force env-update to run
The above is my email to gentoo-java regarding LD_ASSUME_KERNEL blowing up users system -- my ideas regarding env-update my not be correct but the point of this bug it to bring up the possibility of env-update recognizing potentionally harmful situations.
unless the portage peeps disagree i say this is a java bug
