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Bug 868383 - RFE: make sure correct options are in $LESS when auto-paging
Summary: RFE: make sure correct options are in $LESS when auto-paging
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: systemd
Version: 18
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: systemd-maint
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
: 869403 (view as bug list)
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-10-19 16:46 UTC by Matthew Miller
Modified: 2013-05-16 02:56 UTC (History)
10 users (show)

Fixed In Version: systemd-201-2.fc18.6
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-05-16 02:56:19 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:

Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Matthew Miller 2012-10-19 16:46:07 UTC 
Description of problem:

When I run journalctl, it pipes output to less, and escape sequences are there but not interpretted. For example: "kernel: ESC[1;39mtype=1404 audit(1350686330.035:2): enforcing=1 old_enforcing=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295ESC[0m".

Typing -R<enter> to enable processing of ANSI sequences makes the sequences show properly.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

systemd-194-1.fc18.x86_64
less-444-8.fc18.x86_64

This is on an up-to-date F18 test system.

How reproducible:

always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install system
2. Wait until something colored hits the log
3. run journalctl
  
Actual results:

Garbled ESC codes in output.

Expected results:

Pretty colors in output.
Comment 1 Lennart Poettering 2012-10-20 23:17:17 UTC 
hmm, do you have any non-default options set in $LESS? The default of less does actually interpret ANSI escape codes.

What does this print for you?

echo $LESS

Is this fixed if you invoke:

LESS= journalctl

?
Comment 2 Matthew Miller 2012-10-22 16:21:16 UTC 
Hmmm. Yes; I had -MX set.

Doesn't journalctl override this? I don't necessarily want to add -R to my default options. (I don't think that _is_ the default.)

I think journalctl should probably override the default options, as 'man' does.  If one wants to change them, they can set SYSTEMD_PAGER.
Comment 3 Michal Schmidt 2012-10-24 13:29:51 UTC 
*** Bug 869403 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Matthew Miller 2012-10-24 18:23:44 UTC 
Also: "LESS= journalctl" does not work. I have to actually unset LESS.
Comment 5 Michal Schmidt 2012-10-24 18:55:01 UTC 
In pager_open() we do: setenv("LESS", "FRSX", 0);
We can change the last argument to 1 to override the user's value.
Comment 6 Matthew Miller 2012-10-25 12:29:03 UTC 
(In reply to comment #5)
> In pager_open() we do: setenv("LESS", "FRSX", 0);
> We can change the last argument to 1 to override the user's value.

(Can we add M while we are at it?)
Comment 7 Matthew Miller 2012-10-31 13:37:38 UTC 
(Re: title change)

While "override $LESS" is the suggested fix, I think it's still a _bug_, not really an RFE. As long as it's fixed, not a big deal, of course.
Comment 8 Lennart Poettering 2013-03-07 12:42:53 UTC 
I have now added "M" to LESS.

I am not sure we really should override $LESS. git doesn't do that. I have the suspicion that people would hate us if we override their personal settings. Dunno. Opinions? Convince me that we really should override $LESS. If not, I'll close the bug.
Comment 9 Matthew Miller 2013-03-07 13:13:05 UTC 
(In reply to comment #8)
> I have now added "M" to LESS.
> 
> I am not sure we really should override $LESS. git doesn't do that. I have
> the suspicion that people would hate us if we override their personal
> settings. Dunno. Opinions? Convince me that we really should override $LESS.
> If not, I'll close the bug.

It looks like git (and man) _add_ to the existing options. They don't exhibit the same problem with color and -R.

I agree that that's better than just overriding them, and that people might not be happy about that. However, if that's hard, I think overriding is better than the current approach, especially since there is $SYSTEMD_PAGER.
Comment 10 Lennart Poettering 2013-03-07 16:26:41 UTC 
From what I am seeing in the git sources (pager.c) they do not add, they only set $LESS if it is not set anyway, and they set it to FRSX. I don't see any code for "adding" settings there, do you?
Comment 11 Matthew Miller 2013-03-07 21:07:24 UTC 
(In reply to comment #10)
> From what I am seeing in the git sources (pager.c) they do not add, they
> only set $LESS if it is not set anyway, and they set it to FRSX. I don't see
> any code for "adding" settings there, do you?

My fault; I had pager options set in git directly as well. It does have the same behavior.
Comment 12 Lennart Poettering 2013-03-07 21:23:49 UTC 
I have now turned on overriding of LESS after all, simply to ensure that the new "-e" feature (i.e. immediately jump to end of log stream) of journalctl always works. 

I guess this closes the issue.
Comment 13 Matthew Miller 2013-03-07 22:43:27 UTC 
Cool. Thanks!
Comment 14 Fedora Update System 2013-04-10 20:09:56 UTC 
systemd-201-2.fc18.1 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 18.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/systemd-201-2.fc18.1
Comment 15 Fedora Update System 2013-04-11 23:23:02 UTC 
Package systemd-201-2.fc18.2:
* should fix your issue,
* was pushed to the Fedora 18 testing repository,
* should be available at your local mirror within two days.
Update it with:
# su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing systemd-201-2.fc18.2'
as soon as you are able to.
Please go to the following url:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2013-5452/systemd-201-2.fc18.2
then log in and leave karma (feedback).
Comment 16 Fedora Update System 2013-04-15 23:57:44 UTC 
Package systemd-201-2.fc18.4:
* should fix your issue,
* was pushed to the Fedora 18 testing repository,
* should be available at your local mirror within two days.
Update it with:
# su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing systemd-201-2.fc18.4'
as soon as you are able to.
Please go to the following url:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2013-5452/systemd-201-2.fc18.3
then log in and leave karma (feedback).
Comment 17 Fedora Update System 2013-04-18 02:34:55 UTC 
Package systemd-201-2.fc18.5:
* should fix your issue,
* was pushed to the Fedora 18 testing repository,
* should be available at your local mirror within two days.
Update it with:
# su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing systemd-201-2.fc18.5'
as soon as you are able to.
Please go to the following url:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2013-5452/systemd-201-2.fc18.5
then log in and leave karma (feedback).
Comment 18 Fedora Update System 2013-05-07 13:37:18 UTC 
systemd-201-2.fc18.6 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 18.
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2013-5452/systemd-201-2.fc18.6
Comment 19 Fedora Update System 2013-05-09 09:59:46 UTC 
Package systemd-201-2.fc18.6:
* should fix your issue,
* was pushed to the Fedora 18 testing repository,
* should be available at your local mirror within two days.
Update it with:
# su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing systemd-201-2.fc18.6'
as soon as you are able to.
Please go to the following url:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2013-5452/systemd-201-2.fc18.6
then log in and leave karma (feedback).
Comment 20 Fedora Update System 2013-05-16 02:56:19 UTC 
systemd-201-2.fc18.6 has been pushed to the Fedora 18 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
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