Bug#135295: apt-cache segfaults if sources.list is unreadable
Package: apt
Version: 0.5.4
Severity: important
If /etc/apt/sources.list is unreadable (mode 0600 in my case), then
apt-cache segfaults. This means that it always works for root, but may
segfault when run as a normal user. Looking at the other bug reports for
apt, it seems that apt-cache is VERY flaky when it has trouble reading
from files, usually just segfaulting without printing any useful error
message.
Even an strace on apt-cache didn't really help, as apt-cache proceeded
much further beyond its initial failure to open sources.list before
dying.
I saw a similar bug related to the pkgcache files, which may be the same
bug as this, but the description mentioned nothing of sources.list so I
thought I'd add this to the myriad list of bugs attributed to apt
-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux xiao 2.4.17-xfs #2 SMP Mon Feb 4 22:20:50 GMT 2002 i686
Locale: LANG=en_GB, LC_CTYPE=en_GB
Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii libc6 2.2.5-3 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 1:2.95.4-1 The GNU stdc++ library
--
Russell Howe
rhowe@wiss.co.uk ** NOTE ** new email address
Reply to: