Bug#985149: debootstrap stumbles over tabs in include parameter

[Christian Lamparter <chunkeey@gmail.com>]

Hello Steve,

On 16/03/2021 15:12, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 13, 2021 at 05:56:26PM +0100, Christian Lamparter wrote:
> > Package: debootstrap
> > Version: 1.0.123
> > Severity: normal
> >
> > Dear Maintainer,
> >
> > I ran into an issue when I was using debootstrap in order to setup a chroot-
> > environment.
> >
> > I: Retrieving InRelease
> > I: Checking Release signature
> > I: Valid Release signature (key id 6D33866EDD8FFA41C0143AEDDCC9EFBF77E11517)
> > I: Retrieving Packages
> > I: Validating Packages
> > I: Resolving dependencies of required packages...
> > I: Resolving dependencies of base packages...
> > I: Checking component main on http://deb.debian.org/debian...
> > E: Couldn't find these debs: 48477576
> >
> > I was surprised to see that "48477576". I expected to get the
> > name of the package that was causing this, instead of a number.
> > I dug deeper to see what's causing this and I was surprised
> > when I found out that the parameter '--include=<tab>package'
> > that was passed to debootstrap was causing this.
> >
> > Here's a reproducer (can be copied into bash). It fetches the
> > current debian stable for amd64 with "gzip" as an extra package.
> > (that $(printf \\t) is in this example, here so the "tab" won't
> > get lost when copying&pasting)
>
> Ummm. Why are you expecting debootstrap to deal with whitespace here?
> I'm not convinced this is a bug...

What threw me off is that "E: Couldn't find these debs: 48477576".
48477576 is not a package, right?.

Well, the backstory is: I came across this, because I needed some
extra, but sensible packages in my basic image for it to be useful.

this script look(ed) like this (a mailer with tab support is needed
for proper alignment)

---
PACKAGE="initramfs-tools,gzip,u-boot-tools,device-tree-compiler,\
	 debian-keyring-archive,bzip2, ca-certificates,wget,	\
	 ..."

debootstrap --include="$PACKAGE" ...
---

But it bugged and I had no idea it was because I was using tabs to
align the extra PACKAGE in the next lines because they wouldn't fit
due to 80 cols limit.

Once I figured out that the use of tabs are the issue, I replaced
them with spaces. Then I went on to write a proper bug-report with
a testcase and PoC-patch, in case someone (like future me) stumbles
over this as well: "Check your include/excludes with a fine comb".


But back to the business at hand... Because I would need to know
why you think that a Error message like
"E: Couldn't find these debs: 48477576"
doesn't trigger a "yeah, this 48477576 looks buggy"?

Is there a deeper meaning to the numbers like 48477576?...
or:
 - 29976556? (<https://lists.uni-koeln.de/pipermail/linux-fai/2005-September/003500.html>)
 - 91369800? (<https://linux.debian.maint.boot.narkive.com/z0k3FJmD/bug-785276-debootstrap-fails-with-message-couldn-t-find-these-debs-91369800>)
 - 0? (<https://github.com/meefik/linuxdeploy/issues/190>)

that I don't get?

Cheers,
Christian