Problem with not relocatable lsusb and lspci binaries in the appimage built by OBS

[lvc]

Hi,

I'm trying to build an AppImage on OBS for a script that executes lsusb: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:linuxbuild/hw-probe

I run the resulting AppImage by:

sudo ./hw-probe-0-Build48.1.glibc2.17-x86_64.AppImage -all -upload

lsusb trying to find /usr/share/usb.ids file on a host system instead of the local usb.ids file in the AppImage directory. But on the host system such file doesn't exist and lsusb has failed.

Why binreloc doesn't relocate it? I've tried both binpatch: true and union: true.

How can I fix settings to force relocating of lsusb?

The same issue affects lspci.

Thank you.

[probonopd]

Just noticed that you are the man behind abi-laboratory.pro. Awesome project! 👍 If you have some time, I'd love to hear your opinions on https://gitlab.com/probono/platformissues and an upcoming talk about them I am currently working on

[probonopd]

Let's have a look:

# Get the AppImage
wget -c https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/linuxbuild/AppImage/hw-probe-latest-x86_64.AppImage

# Extract the AppImage
chmod +x ./hw-probe-latest-x86_64.AppImage 
./hw-probe-latest-x86_64.AppImage --appimage-extract

# See what is going on 
sudo strace -f squashfs-root/AppRun -all 2>&1 | grep usb.ids
# gives:
# [pid  5953] openat(AT_FDCWD, "/usr/share/usb.ids", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

# Search where this comes from
grep -r '/usr/share/usb.ids' squashfs-root/
# gives:
# Binary file squashfs-root/usr/bin/lsusb matches

# Patch
sed -i -e 's|/usr/share/|././/share/|g' squashfs-root/usr/bin/lsusb

# Check whether it works
sudo strace -f squashfs-root/AppRun -all 2>&1 | grep usb.ids
# gives:
# [pid  7470] openat(AT_FDCWD, "././/share/usb.ids", O_RDONLY) = 3

This works because the standard AppRun launcher, before executing the payload application, does a chdir() into usr/ inside the AppDir. This allows us to binary-patch the string /usr with the same-length string ././ which means "here", and it will work as long as the payload software does not do chdir() on its own.

So, in your appimage.yml you could add

sed -i -e 's|/usr/share/|././/share/|g' $BUILD_APPDIR/usr/bin/lsusb

torwards the end, and it should work. Or somewhat more drastic

find $BUILD_APPDIR/usr/ -type f -executable -exec sed -i -e "s|/usr|././|g" {} \;

which should also solve it for lspci as well.

Now, the question is, why does binpatch: true and union: true not work for you? The former should do the binary patching, and the latter should use LD_PRELOAD to rewrite the paths... possibly https://github.com/AppImage/AppImages/blob/master/YML.md#keys-that-enable-ability-to-relocate are not (yet?) implemented on OBS. OBS uses its own version of the tooling, so there might be subtle differences.

cc @adrianschroeter

[lvc]

Hi,

This has solved my issue. Thanks a lot!

Now I have a great portable app! The reason of using the AppImage was in absence of dependencies for my app in most Linux distributions (even in modern ones) and differences in the installing procedures and package formats. With AppImage installing my app is easier than installing from a package repository!

However I've experienced several problems with creating the image:

1) The first one is that OBS currently can't use external ingredients. I've followed the https://github.com/AppImage/docs.appimage.org/blob/master/source/packaging-guide/obs.md and tried to use build: git: property of the appimage.yml but build service always returns Can't resolve github.com when building the image. I've placed source files in the OBS home project and referenced to them from the appimage.yml file instead.

2) Missed app.desktop blocks building of the image and log files were empty. It took some time to understand from the AppImageKit source code that desktop file is necessary for building the image.

3) I've found that it's easier to create the image by adding appimage.yml and app.desktop directly to my home OBS project near RPM specs and other stuff rather than from AppImageTemplate in a separate project and build together with other packages.

4) Editing of project meta data doesn't work for me in the web site form (adding repository tag to package). It only works via osc tool.

5) Need to set SSL_CERT_DIR=../var/lib/ca-certificates/pem to download or upload anything by curl in my app.

6) The issue with executing lsusb and lspci (solved here).

BTW There is a broken redirect link on this page https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/wiki/Using-Open-Build-Service to the obs.md.

[TheAssassin]

@lvc we're moving to https://docs.appimage.org at the moment, we will fix the links there.

[probonopd]

Now I have a great portable app! The reason of using the AppImage was in absence of dependencies for my app in most Linux distributions (even in modern ones) and differences in the installing procedures and package formats. With AppImage installing my app is easier than installing from a package repository!

That's the goal of AppImage. I think your projects and ours fit very well together, as we both care about establishing a platform rather than a fragmented ecosystem...

git: property of the appimage.yml but build service always returns Can't resolve github.com

This may well be an OBS bug? cc @adrianschroeter

It took some time to understand from the AppImageKit source code that desktop file is necessary for building the image.

Where in https://github.com/AppImage/docs.appimage.org/blob/master/source/packaging-guide/obs.md could we make this clear? What would have helped you?

I've found that it's easier to create the image by adding appimage.yml and app.desktop directly to my home OBS project

Yes, you don't need to use AppImageTemplate but it's a convenient "scaffolding" for people starting from scratch.

Editing of project meta data doesn't work for me in the web site form (adding repository tag to package). It only works via osc tool.

Again, most likely a OBS bug. Please report it in the OBS bug tracker. cc @adrianschroeter

Need to set SSL_CERT_DIR=../var/lib/ca-certificates/pem to download or upload anything by curl in my app.

Why? Most likely because of this. Workaround: Patch whatever consumes certificates (e.g., libgnutls) to look in all known places. Example: https://github.com/darealshinji/vlc-AppImage/issues/1#issuecomment-321041496

[lvc]

Just noticed that you are the man behind abi-laboratory.pro. Awesome project! +1 If you have some time, I'd love to hear your opinions on https://gitlab.com/probono/platformissues and an upcoming talk about them I am currently working on

Interesting! Thank you.