[Letsencrypt-devel] certbot in jessie-backports bails out with Python traceback directly upon start

[Axel Beckert]

Hi,

certbot bails out for me on at least on machine running Debian Jessie
with certbot from backports:

# certbot
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/certbot", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2927, in <module>
    @_call_aside
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2913, in _call_aside
    f(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2940, in _initialize_master_working_set
    working_set = WorkingSet._build_master()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 626, in _build_master
    ws = cls()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 619, in __init__
    self.add_entry(entry)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 675, in add_entry
    for dist in find_distributions(entry, True):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 1982, in find_on_path
    path_item, entry, metadata, precedence=DEVELOP_DIST
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2370, in from_location
    py_version=py_version, platform=platform, **kw
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2687, in _reload_version
    md_version = _version_from_file(self._get_metadata(self.PKG_INFO))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2335, in _version_from_file
    line = next(iter(version_lines), '')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 2503, in _get_metadata
    for line in self.get_metadata_lines(name):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 1873, in get_metadata_lines
    return yield_lines(self.get_metadata(name))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 1863, in get_metadata
    metadata = f.read()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 296, in decode
    (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xb6 in position 147: invalid start byte in /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rpl-1.5.5.egg-info
# file /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rpl-1.5.5.egg-info
/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rpl-1.5.5.egg-info: symbolic link to /usr/share/python-support/rpl/rpl-1.5.5.egg-info
#

The file /usr/share/python-support/rpl/rpl-1.5.5.egg-info belongs to
the package rpl which doesn't seem to be related to certbot. I though
wonder why certbot tries to read that file at all. (So this is not
really a bug report, I rather try to understand why that happens at
all. It might become a bug report though. ;-)

The issue is not present in Debian Unstable/Testing, probably due to
Mattia's NMU of rpl which fixes the encoding of that file:
https://packages.qa.debian.org/r/rpl/news/20151215T002539Z.html

Uninstalling rpl solves the issue, but that can't be the real solution
IMHO.

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' :  |  Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
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