Firestarter fails to run on locales other than English

The problem is in the (generated) file /etc/firestarter/firestarter.sh. The following lines:

IP=`/sbin/ifconfig $IF | grep inet | cut -d : -f 2 | cut -d \\ -f 1`
MASK=`/sbin/ifconfig $IF | grep Mas | cut -d : -f 4`
BCAST=`/sbin/ifconfig $IF |grep Bcast: | cut -d : -f 3 | cut -d \\ -f 1`

fails when the local is other than English, because they look up several keyword ("Mas", "Bcast:") which doesn't appears in ifconfig in Spanish. Example:

ricardo@kadath:~$ LANG=C ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:18:f3:53:b2:9a
          inet addr:192.168.2.100 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:2736 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2634 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:2917432 (2.7 MB) TX bytes:368744 (360.1 KB)
          Interrupt:18 Base address:0xa000

ricardo@kadath:~$ ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet direcciónHW 00:18:f3:53:b2:9a
          inet dirección:192.168.2.100 Difusión:192.168.2.255 Máscara:255.255.255.0
          ARRIBA DIFUSIÓN CORRIENDO MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:2723 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2620 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          colisiones:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:2908959 (2.7 MB) TX bytes:365950 (357.3 KB)
          Interrupción:18 Dirección base: 0xa000

As a workaround, you can hack the /etc/firestarter/firestarter.sh file, replacing the three above lines with the following:

IP=`LANG=C /sbin/ifconfig $IF | grep inet | cut -d : -f 2 | cut -d \\ -f 1`
MASK=`LANG=C /sbin/ifconfig $IF | grep Mas | cut -d : -f 4`
BCAST=`LANG=C /sbin/ifconfig $IF |grep Bcast: | cut -d : -f 3 | cut -d \\ -f 1`

This patch tries to resolve the issue, using the LANG=C prefix in the generated firestarter.sh file.

I was looking for this bug because I have found same issue. Anyway the bug it's already in confirmed status.

Any news about this bug? This is a VERY annoying (critical, IMHO) bug of a frequently used program, and the patch solves it very easily.

Any Ubuntu developer (or MOTU) could take a look over it in order to get it fixed before 8.04.1 release?

I can confirm this as well in the intrepid version. Very annoying and easily solved (I just added export LC_ALL="C" before those lines)

Can any MOTU member apply the patch?

In spanish version you have only to change:

MASK=`LANG=C /sbin/ifconfig $IF | grep Mas | cut -d : -f 4`

for:

MASK=`LANG=C /sbin/ifconfig $IF | grep Más | cut -d : -f 4`

With tilde in "Más". It worked for me.

Is this still an issue in Intrepid? Please test when it comes out.

Yes, it's still an issue in Intrepid Ibex 8.10.

I have got the same problem with firestart.sh, but when I edit the file and fix the problem after run the wizard the file discards the fixed file and replaces it with the old one. How can avoid this situation?

This is still an issue in Intrepid. Please guys, the devil is in the details.
(BTW, there should be a policy agaisnt solving i18n issues by a grep like this)

This is even worst. I have WiFi at eth1 and Ethertnet at eth0. The scripsts call WiFi an external network, and Ethernet internal network. (No idea why).

When my WiFi is not connected, "/sbin/ipconfig eth1" doesn't report any mask, but then the following line in firestarter.sh avoids firestarter to start (:-)).

if [ "$MASK" = "" -a "$1" != "stop" ]; then
 echo "External network device $IF is not ready. Aborting.."
 exit 2
fi

Sorry for the SPAM. It seems tha Firestarter configuration file assumes that I'll do share my WiFi connection (http://www.fs-security.com/docs/connection-sharing.php), and that some provision in needed to deal with both Ethernet and WiFi connections (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=253174) pretty confusing. I think most people just want to configure without thinking about what device they are connecting through.

As a rule, when a patch is added to a bug report the relevant sponsors group should be subscribed to the bug. I'm doing this. I'm also checking the patch.

Ok, the proposed diff obviusly solves the problem. I'll attach here a debdiff for jaunty.

@TheHobbit:
Thanks a lot for taking care of this issue!

Here is the debdiff for Intrepid

motu-release ack as long as the sponsor tests it in a non-english locale.

Tested and works. Waiting for approval now; thanks for your contribution!

This bug was fixed in the package firestarter - 1.0.3-7ubuntu4

---------------
firestarter (1.0.3-7ubuntu4) jaunty; urgency=low

  * made looking interface settings independant from locale (LP: #222038)

 -- Leo Cacciari (TheHobbit) <email address hidden> Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:50:57 +0200

@TheHobbit:

The patch is not sufficient to fix the issue. I realized that the /etc/firestarter/firestarter.sh generated by Firestarter wizard contains the following:

# External network interface data
IP=`LANG=C /sbin/ifconfig $IF | grep inet | cut -d : -f 2 | cut -d \ -f 1`
MASK=`LANG=C /sbin/ifconfig $IF | grep Mas | cut -d : -f 4`
BCAST=`LANG=C /sbin/ifconfig $IF |grep Bcast: | cut -d : -f 3 | cut -d \ -f 1`
NET=$IP/$MASK

if [ "$NAT" = "on" ]; then
        # Internal network interface data
        INIP=`/sbin/ifconfig $INIF | grep inet | cut -d : -f 2 | cut -d \ -f 1`
        INMASK=`/sbin/ifconfig $INIF | grep Mas | cut -d : -f 4`
        INBCAST=`/sbin/ifconfig $INIF |grep Bcast: | cut -d : -f 3 | cut -d \ -f 1`
        INNET=$INIP/$INMASK
fi

So the IP, MASK, BCAST and NET variables are right, but the INIP, INMASK, INBCAST and INNET are still using the wrong locale.

What about setting LANG=C at the beggining of the firestarter.sh generated script?

Boo. My limited testing obviously wasn't enough. Please work up a better patch and I'll sponsor it again if it's ready in the very very near future (release is soon).

Unsubscribing sponsors for now. Please resubscribe when ready.

whoa....
I'll do it tomorrow, now is way to later.
Sorry for the error

well, it was to stupid that I can sleep with. Here is the right debdiff. I did not changed again the version, so that the release is still 1.0.3-7ubuntu4. Could do a 1.0.3-7ubuntu5 if this is better.

The bug only showed up when nat was checked, thus it did not shown. But I definitively _should_ have checked.

well, in case it is useful, here it is

subscribing sponsors so that someone who can test the change properly (i.e. who can speak another language; shame on me) can upload. ScottK gave his approval on IRC.

Laney,

I've tested this in a Jaunty VM in English, French, German, Spanish and Filipino. It appears to work fine in all of those locales. My Russian is too minimal for me to try it out in that locale :)

In the process of testing and packaging it, I fixed a few lintian issues, added a watch file, and shrank the diff.gz by getting config.guess and config.sub changes out of it.

Jaunty's lintian finds some Warnings:

 I: firestarter: arch-dep-package-has-big-usr-share 1420kB 72%
 W: firestarter: script-calls-init-script-directly ./etc/network/if-down.d/50firestarter:3
 W: firestarter: script-calls-init-script-directly ./etc/network/if-up.d/50firestarter:3
 W: firestarter: script-calls-init-script-directly ./etc/ppp/ip-down.d/50firestarter:3
 W: firestarter: script-calls-init-script-directly ./etc/ppp/ip-up.d/50firestarter:3
 W: firestarter: copyright-refers-to-versionless-license-file usr/share/common-licenses/GPL

There is also one source file src/eggtrayicon.c which has an LGPL v2 or later licence (with the old address) and a copyright attribution to a different person than the program as a whole. This is not mentioned in debian/copyright, which IMO is probably a licencing bug.

I'm attaching my debdiff. You can either go with my changes, or (if it is too close to Jaunty release for that) just go with the original patch for the locale issue, whichever is best for Ubuntu.

Jonathan

This bug was fixed in the package firestarter - 1.0.3-7ubuntu5

---------------
firestarter (1.0.3-7ubuntu5) jaunty; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/21_locales_failing.dpatch:
    - Add second half of patch by Leo Cacciari (LP: #222038)
  * debian/patches/22_remove_encoding_from_desktop.dpatch:
    - Remove deprecated Encoding= line from .desktop file.
  * debian/watch: Added watch file.

 -- Jonathan Marsden <email address hidden> Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:08:02 -0700

Thanks for your contribution(s). Please forward all changes (including config) to Debian so that we don't have to maintain this delta forever.