Bug#465484: heirloom-mailx: fails to send utf-8 encoded mail in POSIX locale

[Nis Martensen]

Package: heirloom-mailx
Version: 12.3-3
Severity: normal

Apticron stopped working for me, instead I got mails from anacron with
the following content:

/etc/cron.daily/apticron:
Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character
. . . message not sent.
"//dead.letter" 1285/51195
run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/apticron exited with return code 1

This seems to be caused by UTF-8 encoded characters in the debian
changelogs (to be sent by apticron via mailx). There was no default
locale configured for root (and thus POSIX assumed).

Since I am not sure that this behaviour is expected or wanted, I am
filing this bug.

Can be worked around easily by using an UTF-8 locale as system default.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.21.3 (PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages heirloom-mailx depends on:
ii base-files 4.0.2 Debian base system miscellaneous f
ii libc6 2.7-6 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libkrb53 1.6.dfsg.3~beta1-2 MIT Kerberos runtime libraries
ii libssl0.9.8 0.9.8g-4 SSL shared libraries

heirloom-mailx recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

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[Hilko Bengen]

tags 465484 moreinfo
thanks
Nis Martensen <nis.ma...@eev.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:

> /etc/cron.daily/apticron:
> Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character
> . . . message not sent.
> "//dead.letter" 1285/51195
> run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/apticron exited with return code 1
>
> This seems to be caused by UTF-8 encoded characters in the debian
> changelogs (to be sent by apticron via mailx). There was no default
> locale configured for root (and thus POSIX assumed).

Thanks for spotting this. I believe that putting a

set ttycharset=utf8

into /etc/nail.rc should fix this issue. Could you please try whether
the bug is still reproducible with that setting?

> Since I am not sure that this behaviour is expected or wanted, I am
> filing this bug.

One could certainly argue that /bin/mail compatible programs shouldn't
be expected to behaved in a defined way if non-ASCII input is fed to
them. But I don't consider that approach particularly pragmatic. :-)

Cheers,
-Hilko

[Nis Martensen]

On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:43:20 +0100, Hilko Bengen wrote:
> Thanks for spotting this. I believe that putting a
>
> set ttycharset=utf8
>
> into /etc/nail.rc should fix this issue. Could you please try whether
> the bug is still reproducible with that setting?

Putting the above line in .nailrc does not fix it, but putting it in
/etc/nail.rc does.

I used the following command line to reproduce it:

printf "M\xc3\xa4rchen\n" | LC_ALL=C mailx -s test $USER

Nis

[Nis Martensen]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:55:51 +0100, Nis Martensen wrote:
> Apticron stopped working for me, instead I got mails from anacron with
> the following content:
>
> /etc/cron.daily/apticron:
> Invalid or incomplete multibyte or wide character
> . . . message not sent.
> "//dead.letter" 1285/51195
> run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/apticron exited with return code 1

[...]

> Can be worked around easily by using an UTF-8 locale as system default.

Well, no. Not if cron/anacron ignore /etc/default/locale.
This can probably be fixed by fiddling with pam configuration. But I
consider this not-needed because of the ttycharset fix. :-)

Nis

[Hilko Bengen]

Nis Martensen <nis.ma...@eev.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:

> Putting the above line in .nailrc does not fix it, but putting it in
> /etc/nail.rc does.

Thank you. I'm going to put that line into nailrc, starting with the
next upload.

-Hilko