Bug#390473: marked as forwarded (grub2: menuentry stanza doesn't accept $ { } in variable substitutions)

[Debian Bug Tracking System]

Your message dated Tue, 03 Oct 2006 12:46:14 +0200
with message-id <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
has caused the Debian Bug report #390473,
regarding grub2: menuentry stanza doesn't accept $ { } in variable substitutions
to be marked as having been forwarded to the upstream software
author(s) [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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--- Begin Message ---

Hi Robert!

To the grub-devel guys: attached the report of a grub2 bug I
experienced on Debian (marco_g should already be aware of).  In case
of replies, please cc: the Debian BTS and myself (I set R-T and M-F-T
accordingly).

On Mon, 02 Oct 2006 17:10:12 +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> Given that this is treated as a syntax error, I don't consider it to
> be release critical (it is important, though, on the basis that a
> non-release Debian platform depends on it).

Well, given the definition of critical [1] and the fact that with the
old menu.lst converted to grub.cfg my system broke, I chose critical.
However, I agree that mine could be considered a not-so-common case,
thus I'm fine with important :-)

> I would like not to diverge from upstream, specialy since GNU/Hurd
> is a platform we expect them to support.  Please, could you resend
> your report to them ?  (grub-devel@gnu.org).

Done (and marked the Debian bug as forwarded).

I should note that thanks to the help of #hurd and #grub of Freenode
(mostly marco_g ;-) ), the problem is solved escaping the "bad"
characters within single quotes.

Anyway, I still consider it an important bug (at least because there's
no documentation for it).  Waiting for an upstream solution, I'll put
a note in the README.Debian (or better in the NEWS.Debian, which is
showed during upgrades).

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

Footnotes: 
[1] makes unrelated software on the system (or the whole system)
    break, or causes serious data loss, or introduces a security hole
    on systems where you install the package

--- Begin Message ---

Package: grub2
Version: 1.94+20060926-1
Severity: critical

Hello,

with the previous grub1 I had a Debian GNU/Hurd entry in my menu.lst:
=====
title           Debian GNU/Hurd
root            (hd0,9)
kernel          /boot/gnumach.gz root=device:hd0s10
module          /hurd/ext2fs.static \
                --multiboot-command-line=${kernel-command-line} \
                --host-priv-port=${host-port} \
                --device-master-port=${device-port} \
                --exec-server-task=${exec-task} \
                -T typed ${root} $(task-create) $(task-resume)
module          /lib/ld.so.1 /hurd/exec $(exec-task=task-create)
boot
=====

The first time I installed grub2 I "converted" that entry into the
grub2 config menu:
=====
menuentry "Debian GNU/Hurd" {
        set root=(hd0,9)
        multiboot /boot/gnumach.gz root=device:hd0s10
        module /hurd/ext2fs.static \
               --multiboot-command-line=${kernel-command-line} \
               --host-priv-port=${host-port} \
               --device-master-port=${device-port} \
               --exec-server-task=${exec-task} \
               -T typed ${root} $(task-create) $(task-resume)
        module /lib/ld.so.1 /hurd/exec $(exec-task=task-create)
}
=====

After a `grub-install /dev/hda` and a reboot, grub2 entered in a panic
state at boot.  Hopefully, the panic is reproducible, even on qemu:
create the following stanza (you can substitute $ with a second { ):

    menuentry "test" { $ }

The panic is similar to the error generated with a $ at the beginning
of the grub.cfg file.  While in the latter case grub2 can continue
booting, in n the former case the only way to solve it is to boot with
a rescue CD and remove the offending characters from grub2.cfg.

Trying to escape \$ \{ and \} doesn't solve the problem.

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 
'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages grub2 depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.3.6.ds1-4 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  liblzo1                      1.08-3      data compression library (old vers
ii  libncurses5                  5.5-4       Shared libraries for terminal hand

grub2 recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

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