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Bug 769359

Summary: sys-apps/install-xattr - allow installing files from filesystems without xattr
Product: Gentoo Linux Reporter: Jaak Ristioja <jaak>
Component: Current packagesAssignee: Gentoo's Team for Core System packages <base-system>
Status: UNCONFIRMED ---    
Severity: enhancement CC: base-system, opal, sam
Priority: Normal    
Version: unspecified   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---

Description Jaak Ristioja 2021-02-07 17:57:44 UTC
If the Gentoo repository (i.e. /var/db/repos/gentoo) is on a filesystem without xattr support, emerging packages like net-mail/mailbase or app-arch/tar fails on hardened (i.e. default/linux/amd64/17.1/no-multilib/hardened), due to install-xattr failing to retrieve the extended attributes of certain files:

  install-xattr: listxattr() failed: Operation not supported

According to strace:

  listxattr("/var/tmp/portage/net-mail/mailbase-1.5-r2/files/mailcap.5", NULL, 0) = -1 EOPNOTSUPP (Operation not supported)

where /var/tmp/portage/net-mail/mailbase-1.5-r2/files is actually a symlink to /var/db/repos/gentoo/net-mail/mailbase/files during the merge.

During debugging this I wasted quite a lot of time trying to figure out what is wrong with the xattr support on my /var/tmp/portage/ filesystem (which does have xattr support) before I found that the FILESDIR was actually a symlink to the other filesystem.

Please add support for repositories on filesystems without xattr or provide better diagnostics. Should extended attributes from files residing on different filesystems than ${PORTAGE_BUILDDIR} at all be considered for copying?

Thanks!