Skip to content

Conversation

@kolyshkin
Copy link
Contributor

A couple of fixes; similar to moby/moby#35618

1. idtools/mkdirAs: error out if dir exists as file

os.MkdirAll() function returns "not a directory" error in case a
directory to be created already exists but is not a directory
(e.g. a file). MkdirAllNewAs function do not replicate the behavior.

This is a bug since it is expected to ensure the required directory
exists and is indeed a directory, and return an error otherwise.

2. fix MkdirAll usage

This subtle bug keeps lurking in because error checking for Mkdir()
and MkdirAll() is slightly different wrt EEXIST/IsExist:

  • for Mkdir(), IsExist error should (usually) be ignored
    (unless you want to make sure directory was not there before)
    as it means "the destination directory was already there";

  • for MkdirAll(), IsExist error should NEVER be ignored.

This commit removes ignoring the IsExist error, as it should not
be ignored.

For more details, a quote from my opencontainers/runc#162 (July 2005):


TL;DR: check for IsExist(err) after a failed MkdirAll() is both
redundant and wrong -- so two reasons to remove it.

Quoting MkdirAll documentation:

MkdirAll creates a directory named path, along with any necessary
parents, and returns nil, or else returns an error. If path
is already a directory, MkdirAll does nothing and returns nil.

This means two things:

  1. If a directory to be created already exists, no error is
    returned.

  2. If the error returned is IsExist (EEXIST), it means there exists
    a non-directory with the same name as MkdirAll need to use for
    directory. Example: we want to MkdirAll("a/b"), but file "a"
    (or "a/b") already exists, so MkdirAll fails.

The above is a theory, based on quoted documentation and my UNIX
knowledge.

  1. In practice, though, current MkdirAll implementation [1] returns
    ENOTDIR in most of cases described in Add a configuration file #2, with the exception when
    there is a race between MkdirAll and someone else creating the
    last component of MkdirAll argument as a file. In this very case
    MkdirAll() will indeed return EEXIST.

Because of #1, IsExist check after MkdirAll is not needed.

Because of #2 and #3, ignoring IsExist error is just plain wrong,
as directory we require is not created. It's cleaner to report
the error now.

Note this error is all over the tree, I guess due to copy-paste,
or trying to follow the same usage pattern as for Mkdir(),
or some not quite correct examples on the Internet.

[1] https://github.com/golang/go/blob/f9ed2f75/src/os/path.go


@rhatdan
Copy link
Member

rhatdan commented May 17, 2020

LGTM

@rhatdan
Copy link
Member

rhatdan commented May 18, 2020

Copy link
Member

@vrothberg vrothberg left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

LGTM

Copy link
Member

@saschagrunert saschagrunert left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

LGTM. but this needs rebase

@TomSweeneyRedHat
Copy link
Member

LGTM

kolyshkin added 2 commits May 18, 2020 07:16
os.MkdirAll() function returns "not a directory" error in case a
directory to be created already exists but is not a directory
(e.g. a file). MkdirAllNewAs function do not replicate the behavior.

This is a bug since it is expected to ensure the required directory
exists and is indeed a directory, and return an error otherwise.

Signed-off-by: Kir Kolyshkin <[email protected]>
This subtle bug keeps lurking in because error checking for `Mkdir()`
and `MkdirAll()` is slightly different wrt `EEXIST`/`IsExist`:

 - for `Mkdir()`, `IsExist` error should (usually) be ignored
   (unless you want to make sure directory was not there before)
   as it means "the destination directory was already there";

 - for `MkdirAll()`, `IsExist` error should NEVER be ignored.

This commit removes ignoring the IsExist error, as it should not
be ignored.

For more details, a quote from my opencontainers/runc#162 (July 2015):

-quote-

TL;DR: check for IsExist(err) after a failed MkdirAll() is both
redundant and wrong -- so two reasons to remove it.

Quoting MkdirAll documentation:

MkdirAll creates a directory named path, along with any necessary
parents, and returns nil, or else returns an error. If path
is already a directory, MkdirAll does nothing and returns nil.

This means two things:

If a directory to be created already exists, no error is
returned.

If the error returned is IsExist (EEXIST), it means there exists
a non-directory with the same name as MkdirAll need to use for
directory. Example: we want to MkdirAll("a/b"), but file "a"
(or "a/b") already exists, so MkdirAll fails.

The above is a theory, based on quoted documentation and my UNIX
knowledge.

In practice, though, current MkdirAll implementation [1] returns
ENOTDIR in most of cases described in containers#2, with the exception when
there is a race between MkdirAll and someone else creating the
last component of MkdirAll argument as a file. In this very case
MkdirAll() will indeed return EEXIST.
Because of containers#1, IsExist check after MkdirAll is not needed.

Because of containers#2 and containers#3, ignoring IsExist error is just plain wrong,
as directory we require is not created. It's cleaner to report
the error now.

Note this error is all over the tree, I guess due to copy-paste,
or trying to follow the same usage pattern as for Mkdir(),
or some not quite correct examples on the Internet.

[1] https://github.com/golang/go/blob/f9ed2f75/src/os/path.go

-end-quote-

Signed-off-by: Kir Kolyshkin <[email protected]>
@kolyshkin
Copy link
Contributor Author

rebased

Copy link
Member

@rhatdan rhatdan left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

LGTM

@rhatdan rhatdan merged commit 16ff38b into containers:master May 18, 2020
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

5 participants