Librarian database fails when no USER or HOME env is set

[owenbendavies]

Summary

I am trying to run librarian-puppet install on an Amazon EC2 instance with a shell script in the user data.

It is failing because librarian is not picking up the user, this is because when the script is run, neither the USER or HOME environment variables are set.

I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions of how I could make the Environment.default_home method work? I can just add a HOME= to my script, but it would be nice to fix the method.

Versions

librarian (0.1.2)

Stacktrace

`getpwnam': can't convert nil into String (TypeError)
/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/librarian-0.1.2/lib/librarian/environment.rb:206:in `default_home'
/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/librarian-0.1.2/lib/librarian/environment.rb:33:in `block in initialize'
/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/librarian-0.1.2/lib/librarian/environment.rb:33:in `fetch'
/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/librarian-0.1.2/lib/librarian/environment.rb:33:in `initialize'
/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/librarian-0.1.2/lib/librarian/cli.rb:45:in `new'
/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/librarian-0.1.2/lib/librarian/cli.rb:45:in `with_environment'
/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/librarian-0.1.2/lib/librarian/cli.rb:26:in `bin!'
/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/gems/librarian-puppet-1.1.3/bin/librarian-puppet:7:in `<top (required)>'
/usr/local/bin/librarian-puppet:23:in `load'
/usr/local/bin/librarian-puppet:23:in `<main>'

Environment

TERM=linux
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/bin
RUNLEVEL=2
JOB=cloud-config
PWD=/
RESULT=ok
PREVLEVEL=N
SHLVL=1
UPSTART_INSTANCE=
UPSTART_EVENTS=stopped stopped
UPSTART_JOB=cloud-final
INSTANCE=
_=/usr/bin/env

[owenbendavies]

This method was improved with https://github.com/applicationsonline/librarian/pull/147 however the Etc.getlogin relies on USER env.

[robinbowes]

I've just hit exactly the same issue (running librarian in cloudinit on EC2).

Would it work better if you use something like Etc::getpwuid(Process.euid).name, ie. don't assume that someone is logged on?

R.

[owenbendavies]

I had forgotten about this ticket and no longer have this issue. I would guess it's because I am now using sudo in the script, but unfortunately I can't remember. See:

https://github.com/obduk/setup_server/blob/master/bin/install

[robinbowes]

I've worked round it with this code in the script:

[[ -v HOME ]] || export HOME=/root

ie. set (and export - this is important) $HOME if it's not already set.

I'm sure it would be possible to fix this in the librarian code by using the approach I suggested.

R.

[optiz0r]

Working version here: https://github.com/ecwws/librarian/commit/c6cc53e7e435ce9b9c871c7eadcd8ed4928bdad0