368477 - Unsuitable behaviour when $HOME is not set

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: XPCOM, defect)

Description

[Mike Hommey [:glandium]]

(I've also heard of crashes, but I'm not quite sure about this)

When $HOME is not set, the application, whatever it may be, tries to find the profile in a /.$VENDOR/ directory, for example.

Basically, the main problem is that GetUnixHomeDir (http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/xpcom/io/SpecialSystemDirectory.cpp#222) just tries to get the HOME environment variable without a fallback. If HOME is not set, it should use getpwuid(getuid())->pw_dir (or the NSPR equivalent if there is any).

Speaking of this function, it's strange that VMS uses getenv while others use PR_GetEnv, probably something that should be corrected.

I also found several places that use the HOME environment variable, such as http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/xpcom/io/nsAppFileLocationProvider.cpp#378 or http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/toolkit/xre/nsXREDirProvider.cpp#951, they probably should use the GetUnixHomeDir instead.

Comment 1

[Hubert Figuiere [:hub]]

bug 291162 ?

Comment 2

[Mike Hommey [:glandium]]

Attachment: Set $HOME with data from getpwuid if $HOME is not set.

This makes sure that any code using $HOME will get a value.

Comment 3

[Mike Hommey [:glandium]]

http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/162eea2a68e8