inconsistent behavior for linked target directory

[Karl-Philipp Richter]

If target folder ~/PDF is removed and replaced by a symlink to a folder on another filesystem (~/PDF -> /mnt/some_other_filesystem/PDF) with existing pdf-files the files in this folder are not overwritten and the creation of the pdf is skipped silently. This behavior is diffent from the behavior which occurs when the replacement didn't take place (files are overwritten in the default folder ~/PDF) (bug might be related to the filename prepress_-c__setpdfwrite_-f__s.pdf only).

Ubuntu: 12.10
cups-pdf: 2.6.1-7

[Jani Uusitalo (uusijani)]

On 12.04 at least, the target is governed by cupsd's AppArmor profile (see bug #147551) and trying to circumvent it using symlinks fails irrespective of whether the target is on another filesystem or not ("failed to set file mode for PDF file" in /var/log/cups/cups-pdf_log).

[Karl-Philipp Richter (krichter722)]

I think this is related to cups-pdf trying to change the ownership of ~/PDF or the directory set in /etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf, but fails because it's a link. Just use a function which ignores links whose ownerships can't be set. This problem persists in 2.6.1-8 on Ubtunu 13.04.
Thanks in advance for taking care about this.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

This is caused by AppArmor as stated in comment #1.

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Does this issue still affect cups-pdf 3.0.1 packages?

[Jani Uusitalo (uusijani)]

Yes, this is still present in 20.04 with printer-driver-cups-pdf 3.0.1-6, limited to original reporter's case of having the symlink point to another filesystem; if I point ~/PDF to, say ~/tmp/PDF (without crossing filesystem borders), the PDF is created without issue, whereas having ~/PDF linked to /media/$USER/$USB_THUMBDRIVE/PDF/ does still cause it to fail:

[...]
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] output filename created: /home/jani/PDF/Bug__1092099__342_200_234inconsistent_behavior_for...ry_342_200_-job_8.pdf
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] ghostscript commandline built: /usr/bin/gs -q -dCompatibilityLevel=1.2 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile="/home/jani/PDF/Bug__1092099__342_200_234inconsistent_behavior_for...ry_342_200_-job_8.pdf" -dAutoRotatePages=/PageByPage -dAutoFilterColorImages=false -dColorImageFilter=/FlateEncode -dPDFSETTINGS=/prepress -c .setpdfwrite -f /var/spool/cups-pdf/SPOOL/cups2pdf-233705
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] output file unlinked: /home/jani/PDF/Bug__1092099__342_200_234inconsistent_behavior_for...ry_342_200_-job_8.pdf
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] TMPDIR set for GhostScript: /var/tmp
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] waiting for child to exit
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] entering child process
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] GID set for current user
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] supplementary groups set for current user
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] UID set for current user: jani
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] ghostscript has finished: 256
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [ERROR] failed to set file mode for PDF file: /home/jani/PDF/Bug__1092099__342_200_234inconsistent_behavior_for...ry_342_200_-job_8.pdf (non fatal)
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] ERRNO: 2 (No such file or directory)
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] no postprocessing
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] spoolfile unlinked: /var/spool/cups-pdf/SPOOL/cups2pdf-233705
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [DEBUG] all memory has been freed
Sat Dec 26 16:48:07 2020 [STATUS] PDF creation successfully finished for jani
jani@latimeria:~$ ls -l PDF
lrwxrwxrwx 1 jani jani 27 joulu 26 16:47 PDF -> /media/jani/KINGSTON_1G/PDF
jani@latimeria:~$ ls PDF/
jani@latimeria:~$ ls /media/jani/KINGSTON_1G/PDF/
jani@latimeria:~$

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Have you edited the corresponding AppArmor files to match the new destination?

[Jani Uusitalo (uusijani)]

No, I haven't (and wouldn't know how).

[Martin-Éric Racine (q-funk)]

Standard user output to <${HOME}/PDF/> directory. This settings is fully configurable by editing </etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf> using the system administrator's favorite text editor.

Note that AppArmor prevents outputting PDF documents to non-default directories so </etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.cupsd> must also be edited, whenever the defaults get changed in </etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf>.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for cups-pdf (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]