1402303 - configure.py: Exception: Could not detect environment shell!

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[Paul Menzel]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:55.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/55.0
Build ID: 20170830110123

Steps to reproduce:

Build Firefox in a Docker container where the environment variable `SHELL` is normally not set.


Actual results:

The build fails with the messages below.

```
Creating config.status
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "../configure.py", line 107, in <module>
    sys.exit(main(sys.argv))
  File "../configure.py", line 31, in main
    return config_status(config)
  File "../configure.py", line 92, in config_status
    from mozbuild.config_status import config_status
  File "/home/build/firefox-esr-52.3.0esr/build/mach_bootstrap.py", line 370, in __call__
    module = self._original_import(name, globals, locals, fromlist, level)
  File "/home/build/firefox-esr-52.3.0esr/python/mozbuild/mozbuild/config_status.py", line 21, in <module>
    from mozbuild.base import MachCommandConditions
  File "/home/build/firefox-esr-52.3.0esr/build/mach_bootstrap.py", line 370, in __call__
    module = self._original_import(name, globals, locals, fromlist, level)
  File "/home/build/firefox-esr-52.3.0esr/python/mozbuild/mozbuild/base.py", line 17, in <module>
    from mach.mixin.process import ProcessExecutionMixin
  File "/home/build/firefox-esr-52.3.0esr/build/mach_bootstrap.py", line 370, in __call__
    module = self._original_import(name, globals, locals, fromlist, level)
  File "/home/build/firefox-esr-52.3.0esr/python/mach/mach/mixin/process.py", line 29, in <module>
    raise Exception('Could not detect environment shell!')
Exception: Could not detect environment shell!
```

Even passing the shell with `SHELL=/bin/bash` fails.


Expected results:

The build should not fail and only a POSIX shell should be required. Programs using Autotools or CMake work fine in a Docker container.

Comment 1

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

When Docker first came out and many programs were being executed in containers for the first time, a lot of random programs broke because of missing environment variables like SHELL and USER.

Anyway, the build system could probably infer a reasonable default (like /bin/sh) in the absence of SHELL. So this feels like a fixable bug. But since I don't think the bug has been reported before, it feels like low priority.