gem pristine doesn't seem to account for --user-install

[mpalmer]

Having somehow managed to get a pile of extensions miscompiled, I'm now being prompted to run gem pristine <gem> --version <something> for rather a lot of things. However, it isn't working so well:

$ gem pristine unicorn --version 5.3.0
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
    You don't have write permissions for the /var/lib/gems/2.3.0 directory.
$ sudo gem pristine unicorn --version 5.3.0
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::Exception)
    Failed to find gems ["unicorn"] = 5.3.0

I install all my gems with --user-install by default (my ~/.gemrc has install: --user-install), so it's not surprising that running gem pristine as root gets confused, however I'm somewhat perturbed that running gem pristine as me is erroring out.

If I explicitly set GEM_HOME=~/.gem and then run gem pristine, everything seems to work, but my understanding was that doing that in general was considered poor form, and that --user-install was the recommended solution.

Here are my current environment details:

$ gem env
RubyGems Environment:
  - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 2.5.2
  - RUBY VERSION: 2.3.3 (2016-11-21 patchlevel 222) [x86_64-linux-gnu]
  - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /var/lib/gems/2.3.0
  - USER INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0
  - RUBY EXECUTABLE: /usr/bin/ruby2.3
  - EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /usr/local/bin
  - SPEC CACHE DIRECTORY: /home/mpalmer/.gem/specs
  - SYSTEM CONFIGURATION DIRECTORY: /etc
  - RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
    - ruby
    - x86_64-linux
  - GEM PATHS:
     - /var/lib/gems/2.3.0
     - /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0
     - /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/rubygems-integration/2.3.0
     - /usr/share/rubygems-integration/2.3.0
     - /usr/share/rubygems-integration/all
  - GEM CONFIGURATION:
     - :update_sources => true
     - :verbose => true
     - :backtrace => false
     - :bulk_threshold => 1000
     - :benchmark => false
     - :sources => ["https://rubygems.org/"]
     - "install" => "--user-install --no-ri --no-rdoc --env-shebang"
  - REMOTE SOURCES:
     - https://rubygems.org/
  - SHELL PATH:
     - /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/bin
[etc]
$ sudo gem env
RubyGems Environment:
  - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 2.5.2
  - RUBY VERSION: 2.3.3 (2016-11-21 patchlevel 222) [x86_64-linux-gnu]
  - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /var/lib/gems/2.3.0
  - USER INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /root/.gem/ruby/2.3.0
  - RUBY EXECUTABLE: /usr/bin/ruby2.3
  - EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /usr/local/bin
  - SPEC CACHE DIRECTORY: /root/.gem/specs
  - SYSTEM CONFIGURATION DIRECTORY: /etc
  - RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
    - ruby
    - x86_64-linux
  - GEM PATHS:
     - /var/lib/gems/2.3.0
     - /root/.gem/ruby/2.3.0
     - /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/rubygems-integration/2.3.0
     - /usr/share/rubygems-integration/2.3.0
     - /usr/share/rubygems-integration/all
  - GEM CONFIGURATION:
     - :update_sources => true
     - :verbose => true
     - :backtrace => false
     - :bulk_threshold => 1000
     - :benchmark => false
     - :sources => ["http://rubygems.org/"]
  - REMOTE SOURCES:
     - http://rubygems.org/
  - SHELL PATH:
     - /usr/local/sbin
     - /usr/local/bin
     - /usr/sbin
     - /usr/bin
     - /sbin
     - /bin

I will abide by the code of conduct.

[colby-swandale]

Sorry that no one has replied, are you still experiencing your issue?

[mpalmer]

Yep, just tried again, same behaviour as previously reported:

$ gem pristine onebox --version 1.8.16
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
    You don't have write permissions for the /var/lib/gems/2.3.0 directory.
$ sudo gem pristine onebox --version 1.8.16
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::Exception)
    Failed to find gems ["onebox"] = 1.8.16
$ gem pristine --user-install onebox --version 1.8.16
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (OptionParser::InvalidOption)
    invalid option: --user-install
$ GEM_HOME=~/.gem gem pristine onebox --version 1.8.16
Restoring gems to pristine condition...
Restored onebox-1.8.16
$ gem --version
2.5.2

(I picked onebox-1.8.16 pretty much at random from the list of gems I had installed)

[valpackett]

ruby 2.3.5p376 / gem 2.6.13 — it doesn't even respect GEM_HOME, running GEM_HOME=~/.gem gem pristine --all returns the same permission error.

[colby-swandale]

I'm working on a fix for this.

[bronzdoc]

I'm not able to reproduce this with the current version of rubygems(2.7.7) @mpalmer is this still and issue for you?

[mpalmer]

Yep, still misbehaving in exactly the same way, with the added amusement that a couple of previously legit gemspecs now seem to be causing all sorts of spurious rubbish in the output:

$ gem pristine onebox --version 1.8.16
NOTE: Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= is deprecated with no replacement. It will be removed on or after 2018-12-01.
Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= called from /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/specifications/openid-redis-store-0.0.2.gemspec:17.
NOTE: Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= is deprecated with no replacement. It will be removed on or after 2018-12-01.
Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= called from /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/specifications/rack-openid-1.3.1.gemspec:17.
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
    You don't have write permissions for the /var/lib/gems/2.3.0 directory.
$ sudo gem pristine onebox --version 1.8.16
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::Exception)
    Failed to find gems ["onebox"] = 1.8.16
$ gem pristine --user-install onebox --version 1.8.16
NOTE: Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= is deprecated with no replacement. It will be removed on or after 2018-12-01.
Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= called from /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/specifications/openid-redis-store-0.0.2.gemspec:17.
NOTE: Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= is deprecated with no replacement. It will be removed on or after 2018-12-01.
Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= called from /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/specifications/rack-openid-1.3.1.gemspec:17.
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (OptionParser::InvalidOption)
    invalid option: --user-install
$ GEM_HOME=~/.gem gem pristine onebox --version 1.8.16
NOTE: Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= is deprecated with no replacement. It will be removed on or after 2018-12-01.
Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= called from /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/specifications/openid-redis-store-0.0.2.gemspec:17.
NOTE: Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= is deprecated with no replacement. It will be removed on or after 2018-12-01.
Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= called from /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/specifications/rack-openid-1.3.1.gemspec:17.
Restoring gems to pristine condition...
Restored onebox-1.8.16
$ gem --version
NOTE: Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= is deprecated with no replacement. It will be removed on or after 2018-12-01.
Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= called from /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/specifications/openid-redis-store-0.0.2.gemspec:17.
NOTE: Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= is deprecated with no replacement. It will be removed on or after 2018-12-01.
Gem::Specification#has_rdoc= called from /home/mpalmer/.gem/ruby/2.3.0/specifications/rack-openid-1.3.1.gemspec:17.
2.7.7

[bronzdoc]

➜  ~  gem i --user-install thor

Successfully installed thor-0.20.0
Parsing documentation for thor-0.20.0
Installing ri documentation for thor-0.20.0
Done installing documentation for thor after 0 seconds
1 gem installed

➜  ~  gem which thor
/home/bronzdoc/.gem/ruby/2.5.0/gems/thor-0.20.0/lib/thor.rb

➜  ~  cat  /home/bronzdoc/.gem/ruby/2.5.0/gems/thor-0.20.0/lib/thor.rb | sha256sum
82821d580fce536c3f97e429c4a5beea8ec743f18ed39798ee4b3ba5fa1fdbd2  -

➜  ~  echo "random_text" >> /home/bronzdoc/.gem/ruby/2.5.0/gems/thor-0.20.0/lib/thor.rb

➜  ~  cat  /home/bronzdoc/.gem/ruby/2.5.0/gems/thor-0.20.0/lib/thor.rb | sha256sum
542dbe28b94c48ed00c19d34626f0ffbd25f96b87bac648df18bf5788e5ee70e  -

➜  ~  gem pristine thor
Restoring gems to pristine condition...
Restored thor-0.20.0
➜  ~  cat  /home/bronzdoc/.gem/ruby/2.5.0/gems/thor-0.20.0/lib/thor.rb | sha256sum
82821d580fce536c3f97e429c4a5beea8ec743f18ed39798ee4b3ba5fa1fdbd2  -

gem pristine is working as expected for me, in the example above is restoring the thor gem to a pristine state even when i installed it using --user-install

[bronzdoc]

Closing since this seems like a problem with your environment and not a Rubygems issue

[alick]

I met the same issue when I use /usr/bin/gem, even when my ~/.gemrc has --user-install. The issue disappears when I switch to rvm and use gem from rvm (and no ~/.gemrc).