If installation media is selected as NFS or ftp, and the path to the media is overlong, the installer silently truncates the entered path, and hence fails without a usefully informative error message. If the path (not including ftp:// in the case of ftp) exceeds 64 chars in length as allowed for it in the "char name[DEV_NAME_MAX]" member of the "Device ftpDevice" or "Device nfsDevice" structure (see /usr/src/release/sysinstall/{media.c,sysinstall.h}), this problem will occur. Fix: Choices seem to be a) dynamically allocate the ftpDevice.name and nfsDevice.name arrays (I think this is probably a very bad idea) b) at least trap the problem and generate an informative error message (I don't particularly like this) c) up DEV_NAME_MAX to a reasonable value for standards-allowable path lengths. (probably the least offensive change, but could easily have knock-on effects I haven't noticed). A case could be made for _POSIX_PATH_MAX (512 bytes)? How-To-Repeat: Try to install freebsd off a mirror such as ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/4.0-RELEASE
Responsible Changed From-To: freebsd-bugs->dillon Assigned to dillon. tentitive patch under review by Jordan
Responsible Changed From-To: dillon->freebsd-bugs Back to the free pool.
Responsible Changed From-To: freebsd-bugs->jwd Take ownership, have tested patch
State Changed From-To: open->feedback Is this still a problem with modern versions of FreeBSD? Was the patch discussed, ever committed?
Responsible Changed From-To: jwd->freebsd-qa Reassign to QA alias. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=18466 Adding to audit trail from personal email received by linimon: Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:11:21 -0400
State Changed From-To: feedback->closed From personal email received, this bug was fixed in 5.x almost two years ago. (I have added this email to the audit trail). Since there will be no more releases on 4.X, put on bugmeister hat and declare this PR to be OBE.