A clean cabal install fails with "tar checksum error"

[TerrorJack]

Describe the bug
A clean cabal install fails with "tar checksum error".

To Reproduce
In a clean debian:12 container:

apt update
apt install -y build-essential curl git libffi-dev libncurses-dev libgmp-dev zlib1g-dev

export PATH=~/.local/bin:~/.ghcup/bin:$PATH

curl -f -L --retry 5 https://get-ghcup.haskell.org | BOOTSTRAP_HASKELL_NONINTERACTIVE=1 BOOTSTRAP_HASKELL_MINIMAL=1 sh
ghcup install cabal 3.11.0.0 -u 'https://github.com/haskell/cabal/releases/download/cabal-head/cabal-head-Linux-x86_64.tar.gz' --set
ghcup install ghc 9.8.2 --set

pushd "$(mktemp -d)"
curl -L https://github.com/haskell/haskell-language-server/releases/download/2.7.0.0/haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0-src.tar.gz | tar xz --strip-components=1
cabal update
cabal install exe:haskell-language-server

Expected behavior
It should build and install haskell-language-server. Instead I get:

Error: [Cabal-7125]
Failed to unpack lib:hls-alternate-number-format-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-cabal-fmt-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-cabal-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-call-hierarchy-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-change-type-signature-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-class-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-code-range-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-eval-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-explicit-fixity-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-explicit-imports-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-explicit-record-fields-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-module-name-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-overloaded-record-dot-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-pragmas-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-qualify-imported-names-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-refactor-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-semantic-tokens-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error
Failed to unpack lib:hls-stan-plugin from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 (which is required by exe:haskell-language-server-wrapper from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0 and exe:haskell-language-server from haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0). The exception was:
  tar checksum error

System information

• debian:12
• Linux build01 6.7.4 haskell/cabal#1-NixOS SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Feb 5 20:17:12 UTC 2024 x86_64 GNU/Linux
• cabal-head as of 833a17deb0a5c5f99849a5b6bf06b5346105b918
• ghc-9.8.2

[Bodigrim]

Surprisingly, for some reason I cannot reproduce it with Cabal built locally from the repo. (I'm on M2, so no prebuilt assets available for my platform)

[gbaz]

I'm guessing this is because the two versions of cabal are built against different versions of tar, which had a major release with a number of changes recently?

[geekosaur]

If that leads to a checksum error then one of the versions is highly buggy.

[Bodigrim]

I managed to reproduce. Transferring to tar issue tracker, this has nothing to do with Cabal itself. It is a consequence of haskell/haskell-language-server#4102, but tar-0.6.1.0 should be able to handle Unicode filenames.

A standalone reproducer is:

$ touch TModula𐐀bA.hs && echo "foo" > TModula𐐀bA.hs && cabal run htar -- -c -f unicode.tar TModula𐐀bA.hs && cabal run htar -- -t -f unicode.tar
htar: NotTarFormat

[hasufell]

https://github.com/haskell/haskell-language-server/releases/download/2.7.0.0/haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0-src.tar.gz

Here's the unbroken source tarball: https://downloads.haskell.org/~ghcup/unofficial-bindists/haskell-language-server/2.7.0.0/haskell-language-server-2.7.0.0-src.tar.gz

[Bodigrim]

Fixed in bed491b.

[Mikolaj]

Does cabal need to do anything (e.g., exclude a version of tar in its deps)?

[hasufell]

Does cabal need to do anything (e.g., exclude a version of tar in its deps)?

I guess the same thing every software project does when a dependency fixes a bug.

[Mikolaj]

Does cabal need to do anything (e.g., exclude a version of tar in its deps)?

I guess the same thing every software project does when a dependency fixes a bug.

Oh, that's helpful, thank you. So we'll ignore it.

[Kleidukos]

@Mikolaj you meant to say that we'll exclude the affected version from our build plans, right?

[Mikolaj]

@Mikolaj you meant to say that we'll exclude the affected version from our build plans, right?

I'd rather lean towards the inertia, inaction and passive reactivity typical to software projects. I think cabal is properly setup for such a lazy approach, because our bounds are not too specific, so any new minor version should be accepted and build plans usually default to the newest minor versions. If that's proven insufficient by user reports, we'd panic. Sounds good?

[Kleidukos]

Hmm I am not sure I agree with this course of action.
I'd rather we preventively forbid the buggy version and sleep in peace.

[Bodigrim]

I'd rather we preventively forbid the buggy version and sleep in peace.

Unicode was not properly supported in tar before, and it seems that no one cared about it. The older versions were silently doing a wrong thing, while tar-0.6.1.0 crashes with thunder, which IMHO is much better.

[gbaz]

preventative forbidding versions with bugs of upstream deps is a bad road to go down except in exceptional circumstances. deps are constantly fixing bugs, etc. one whole point of the pvp and minor versions etc is so we can set up ranges to take advantage of this automatically. Going out of our way on this or that thing will lead to very convoluted release files, and a counsel of perfection we can never hold-to.

[hasufell]

Don't worry, GHCup will clean up after cabal devs anyway.

[hasufell]

It appears cabal-install-3.10.3.0 binaries are linked against 0.5.1.1 still:

• pinned index state: https://github.com/haskell/cabal/blob/cabal-install-v3.10.3.0/cabal.project.release#L8
• gitlab CI log: https://gitlab.haskell.org/haskell/cabal/-/jobs/1810036#L173

So it appears the assumption of @Mikolaj that their CI does automatically do the right thing is false. Nothing gets updated, everything is pinned.

[Kleidukos]

@gbaz does this qualify as exceptional circumstances?

[Mikolaj]

Indeed, I was wrong, I learned about the pinned index state only a few days ago, we discussed it on the cabal devs meeting, but we failed to connect it with the issue of last minute urgent upstream fixes like this one. So we need at least to revisit our policy of updating index state after the release: haskell/cabal#9610 (comment)

I've opened a separate issue for that discussion: haskell/cabal#9819

@Kleidukos: apologies, you were right all along. Did you know about the fixed index state?

[Kleidukos]

@Mikolaj no I did not know, I just wanted not to have to take action later on.