check-configuration script returns warning about parse file not supported on ext4

[kartoch]

Issue reported by @bingel74

The only problem I have had, it has occured when I was running post-installation check script. Script
returned a warning saying my fs was not supporting sparse files. Obviously this was wrong since my fs
is ext4. Also one of my friend tested netkit-ng on his pc with ubuntu 14.04 installed and he obtained
same warning.

[kartoch]

@bingel74 Could you comment about how to reproduce it (commands, labs, etc.) and information about the host OS ?

[bingel74]

OS: Ubuntu Desktop 12.04 (updated)

After downloading and installing netkit-ng I executed check script "check_configuration.sh". All cecks passed except following:

###########################################################

Checking filesystem type... failed!

*** Warning: You appear to be running Netkit on a filesystem ()
that does not support sparse files. This may result in dramatic performance
loss and disk space consumption. It is strongly advised to run Netkit
on a filesystem that supports sparse files (e.g., extX, NTFS, ReiserFS do;
FAT32 does not).

###########################################################

However my file system obviously supports sparse files because it is ext4.

[bingel74]

However I found the bug. It is in script "netkit-ng/check_configuration.d/08-check_filesystem.sh". I have seen the command that check file system type is the following:

stat -f . | grep -w Type

Since my bash output is in localized language, voilà the error.

Using this command to run check script:

LANG=C ./check_configuration.sh

bash returns no errors.

[bingel74]

Maybe I'm wrong, however I think this is a weak way to check if user uses a file system that supports sparse files because labs could be created on others partitions and not perforce in same partition where netkit is installed.

[kartoch]

There is two problems:

• Localization problems: a simple idea would be to force export LANG=C at the start of each script.
• Weak check to test support for sparse fs: no idea for a better solution at the present time

[kartoch]

Fix proposal pushed in bfb5344 to force english language for called commands.

[kartoch]

Fix proposal pushed in 77296af for checking filesystem support for sparse file for model fs or fs.

[kartoch]

Fixes released in version 3.0.4.