TotalTerminal update overrides SCRIPT_NAME, breaks webservers

johnboiles · November 12, 2013, 5:03pm

See this StackOverflow question. It looks like when updating TotalTerminal, the SCRIPT_NAME environment variable remains set for all new terminal windows until the computer is restarted. This breaks some webservers (gunicorn broke for me, rails for a guy on the SO question).

Restarting the computer fixes the problem.

darwin · November 12, 2013, 5:39pm

Do you have multiple users logged in on your machine? Is your webserver running under other users?

This is what TotalTerminal installer does to restart it (effective in future version):

github.com

binaryage/totalterminal-installer/blob/master/script_app_post

#!/bin/sh

# replace /Applications/TotalTerminal.app with pre-Yosemite version, if needed
TMP=`sw_vers -productVersion|grep '10\.\(8\|9\)'`
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  rm -rf /Applications/TotalTerminal.app
  cp -a /Library/ScriptingAdditions/TotalTerminal.osax/Contents/Resources/Agent/10.9/TotalTerminal.app /Applications
fi

sleep 2

TMP=`sw_vers -productVersion|grep '10\.\(8\|9\|10\)'`
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  # the goal here is to relaunch Terminal.app under the right user aka "Mach bootstrap namespace"
  # note: we can have multiple users logged in concruently (for fast user switching), each has its own loginwindow process
  # in $OUTPUT we will list all loginwindow processes and pick only the one belonging to the currently logged-in user
  USERID=`id -u "$USER"`
  OUTPUT=`ps -lax | grep '[l]oginwindow.app' | grep "^[ ]*$USERID "`
  if [ -n "$OUTPUT" ]; then
    set - $OUTPUT

This file has been truncated. show original

This is the code in the latest release (including 1.4.6):

github.com

binaryage/totalterminal-installer/blob/f4f92934bc57294e403a5b3e2b5c2a7bf323bbb0/script_app_post#L10


#!/bin/sh


set `ps aux | grep loginwindow.app | grep -v grep`
USERNAME=$1
USERID=$2


echo "login window user name is \"$USERNAME\" and PID is $USERID"


if [[ -n "$USERNAME" && -n "$USERID" ]]; then
/bin/launchctl bsexec "$USERID" /usr/bin/su "$USERNAME" -c "/usr/bin/open /Applications/TotalTerminal.app"
fi

I think the problem is that Terminal.app gets relaunched under different user account.

johnboiles · November 12, 2013, 7:58pm

Nope, just one user.

SCRIPT_NAME was set to postinstall which makes me think it was some sort of leftover from the install process.

Perhaps something about launching TotalTerminal via launchctl after updating causes environment variables present in the install process to persist?

rusterholz · February 12, 2014, 6:10pm

Just ran the update to 1.4.10 and got this taint again. Is it possible to simply run unset SCRIPT_NAME at the end of the installer script to prevent this?

johnboiles · February 12, 2014, 9:36pm

Same here, got it again. It had been just enough time for me to forget what was wrong… Lost another 15 mins or so debugging

darwin · February 13, 2014, 1:55am

I’m sorry for that. I just did some tests and implemented this change, which resolves the leaking environment on my 10.9.2 machine.

This change will be effective since next release (1.4.11).

darwin · February 13, 2014, 2:14am

Please download and install v1.4.11. Please report back if you spot some strange environments in Terminal.app after installation.

johnboiles · February 13, 2014, 6:55pm

I just installed 1.4.11 and compared the output of /usr/bin/env before and after the install. I didn’t see anything unexpected! Looks like you fixed it! Thanks @darwin!