"Error: Couldn't create downloads directory" when running under sudo

[LunarLambda]

No further information, since I can't get any debug info or anything.

sudo -iu myuser followed by nvim (installed to /home/myuser/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim and correctly in PATH) fails with

Oct 17 11:01:50.628 ERROR Error: Couldn't create downloads directory

no matter what i do.

[LunarLambda]

This code makes no sense:

bob/src/helpers/directories.rs

Lines 39 to 44 in 1d8642a

	if let Ok(value) = std::env::var("SUDO_USER") {
	home_str.push(&value);
	if fs::metadata(&home_str).is_ok() {
	return Ok(home_str);
	}
	}

If I run sudo -iu foo as user bar, I end up with

USER=foo
SUDO_USER=bar

And bob then determines that the download directory should be /home/bar/.local/share/bob. This makes no sense. As bar, I have no access whatsoever to /home/bar.

This is a hacky workaround that only works when you're root or happen to work in an environment where all home directories are owned by a shared group.

Besides, foo and bar have separate neovim installations & configurations, so I wouldn't want bob to try to be clever here anyway

My suggestion is:

Determine which directory to use by checking https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/env/fn.current_exe.html in the proxy binary

e.g. if I run /home/foo/.local/share/bob/nvim-bin/nvim, then the directory should be /home/foo/.local/share/bob. And if I run /home/bar/... then it's /home/bar/...

This will work correctly with sudo/su, and do what the user actually wants (since it then comes down to your PATH setting and sudo config)

[LunarLambda]

For the time being I work around it by unsetting SUDO_USER.

[MrDwarf7]

Hi - Could you please provide the version you're running with currently (If bob -V won't output then via your package manager etc.).

Do you have a custom config file setup at all under ~/.config/bob/config.(json|toml)? If you don't, perhaps we can test with a custom downloads_location and see if it changes the outcome, which will give a better idea of what exactly you're running into.

When I have time to do so I plan on doing a fairly large scale re-write that handles a lot of the directory pathing with the aim of making it more deterministic and easier to maintain.
Personally if it's a trivial tool I tend to use a a comp flag over a 'dir' flag that's current_dir() for debug and current_exe() for release. Anything else I'd almost always shill out to dir or create scaffolding around the section of code to ensure deterministic flow which in-turn makes debugging these things unlikely, and if needed very easy.

Out of curiosity (for myself really) - What's the use-case here for calling into sudo -iu <user> then calling nvim from inside that environment if you don't mind me asking?

[LunarLambda]

Bob 4.1.4, no config.

[LunarLambda]

Use case: I have multiple user accounts on my system, one for work one for casual use. Both have (different) neovim setups, but both managed by bob. Sometimes I may need to quickly do something on the other account but without wanting to switch graphical sessions. So, sudo -iu and then using that account's neovim.