Sorry for the late answer, this fell through the cracks. Did you actually test that this works? I. e. can a normal user actually read /dev/nvram? Currently the "cat /dev/nvram" is ran as root via attach_root_command_outputs(), and requiring root was the main reason why this "cat" approach was taken in the first place.
Does /dev/nvram actually contain text information and is this a locale/encoding problem? Or is it binary data, and unrelated to encodings? With 14.10's apport, instead of cat the hook could call "base64 /dev/nvram" or a similar command which provides plaintext. But otherwise I think it would be better to fix attach_root_command_outputs() to get along with binary outputs. > One dummy question remaining, how getting the tar file from the ascii output file if we need to ? You can use "apport-unpack" to decode the apport report file into individual files (named by keys), and then just use tar to extract them further. ** Summary changed: - apport fails to collect nvram specific information + apport fails to collect nvram specific information -- attach_root_command_outputs() does not work for binary data -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to apport in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1370259 Title: apport fails to collect nvram specific information -- attach_root_command_outputs() does not work for binary data Status in apport package in Ubuntu: Triaged Bug description: ---Problem Description--- apport fails to collect nvram specific information ---uname output--- 3.16.0-10-generic Machine Type = POWER8 ---Steps to Reproduce--- 1) Install Ubuntu 14.10 in Power non-virtualized environment. 2) Install apport package 3) Run following command to verify if apport collects power specific information. apport-cli -f -p linux-generic --save=/home/sachin/linux.apport The command fails with following error : root@lep8d:/home/sachin# apport-cli -f -p linux-generic --save=/home/sachin/linux.apport *** Collecting problem information The collected information can be sent to the developers to improve the application. This might take a few minutes. .......tar: Removing leading `/' from member names ....ERROR: hook /usr/share/apport/general-hooks/powerpc.py crashed: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 197, in _run_hook symb['add_info'](report, ui) File "/usr/share/apport/general-hooks/powerpc.py", line 72, in add_info 'nvram': 'cat /dev/nvram', File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/hookutils.py", line 469, in attach_root_command_outputs buf = f.read().strip() File "/usr/lib/python3.4/codecs.py", line 313, in decode (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final) UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xb5 in position 1: invalid start byte ... root@lep8d:/home/sachin# Userspace tool common name: apport Following version of apport is installed. root@lep8d:/home/sachin# dpkg --list | grep apport ii apport 2.14.7-0ubuntu1 all automatically generate crash reports for debugging ii apport-symptoms 0.20 all symptom scripts for apport ii python-apport 2.14.7-0ubuntu1 all Python library for Apport crash report handling ii python3-apport 2.14.7-0ubuntu1 all Python 3 library for Apport crash report handling root@lep8d:/home/sachin# Looking at the code we are doing a cat /dev/nvram to the apport output file which doesn't sounds right to me. I would think using the function add_tar() creating a tar file and copying the content as a ascii file at end of apport output file more appropriate. One dummy question remaining, how getting the tar file from the ascii output file if we need to ? ( that's also true to validate the content of the DeviceTree tar file). Would suggest following patch: --- powerpc.py 2014-09-10 10:28:18.824002770 -0400 +++ powerpc.py.old 2014-09-04 06:33:16.000000000 -0400 @@ -69,8 +69,8 @@ 'cpu_runmode': 'ppc64_cpu --run-mode', 'cpu_freq': 'ppc64_cpu --frequency', 'cpu_dscr': 'ppc64_cpu --dscr', + 'nvram': 'cat /dev/nvram', }) - add_tar(report, '/dev/nvram', 'nvram.tar') attach_file_if_exists(report, '/var/log/platform') if ispSeries and not isPowerKVM: thanks diff -urN powerpc.py.old powerpc.py --- powerpc.py.old 2014-09-04 06:33:16.000000000 -0400 +++ powerpc.py 2014-09-10 10:28:18.824002770 -0400 @@ -69,8 +69,8 @@ 'cpu_runmode': 'ppc64_cpu --run-mode', 'cpu_freq': 'ppc64_cpu --frequency', 'cpu_dscr': 'ppc64_cpu --dscr', - 'nvram': 'cat /dev/nvram', }) + add_tar(report, '/dev/nvram', 'nvram.tar') attach_file_if_exists(report, '/var/log/platform') if ispSeries and not isPowerKVM: Initial Launchpad bug id #1336462 implemented feature support To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/1370259/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
