Threads for misty

  1. 5
    misty avatar misty 7 years ago | link | on: How to Brick OS X El Capitan Ruby Gem

    As noted in another comment, the issue isn’t that /usr/bin/gem overwrites any part of Ruby that comes with the system; it doesn’t have permissions to do that under SIP. Instead, it’s installing a new version of rubygems into /Library/Ruby, which takes precedence over the copy in /System if it exists.

    I think the underlying problem is that Apple patched the wrong file. Apple patched rubygems/defaults.rb, but that’s a file that comes with rubygems, so it’ll be overridden by a /usr/bin/gem update --system. Rubygems supports customizations via a different file, rubygems/defaults/operating_system.rb. That file isn’t installed by default, but if it exists it always takes precedence over rubygems/defaults; that would have prevented this problem. Homebrew uses that to customize the gem bindir in exactly the same way OS X does.

    1. 3
      telemachus avatar telemachus edited 7 years ago | link | on: How to Brick OS X El Capitan Ruby Gem

      Someone on Twitter pointed out to me that this is surprising (and maybe even a bug of sorts): Apparently Apple patches gem in such a way that it doesn’t install binaries to /usr/bin by default any longer.

      But that is surprising because your post-update gem was trying to install to /usr/bin. Out of curiosity, what is the default install directory for gems in the defaults file (grep for if defined? RUBY_FRAMEWORK_VERSION):

      /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/<version>/usr/lib/ruby/<version>/rubygems/defaults.rb

      I’m just wondering if the update to gem overwrote this patch. If so, that seems to be a bug: Apple tried to protect users from this kind of problem, but it should also forbid updating that defaults file.

      Update A few people tried the same global gem update and reported that the it installs a new defaults.rb file in /Library/Ruby/Gems. That defaults file is then read before the one patched by Apple, and boom: breakage when gem tries to install to /usr/bin. A relatively easy fix might be to patch the new defaults.rb by hand, so that it matches the Apple patch. It’s trivial change. I mention all this for future Googlers, but it may also help you now. Good luck!

      1. 5
        misty avatar misty edited 7 years ago | link

        I looked into this, found that the /usr/bin/gem update --system isn’t installing anywhere inside /usr/bin or within the system Ruby at /System; it doesn’t have permissions to do that. Instead, the rubygems update is installing a new rubygems at /Library/Ruby/Site/2.0.0/, which is a sudo-writeable location under SIP; that is loaded by Ruby first before the version that comes with the OS, and it includes a version of rubygems/defaults.rb which lists /usr/bin as the default gem bindir. If you remove /Library/Ruby/Site/2.0.0/rubygems and /Library/Ruby/Site/2.0.0/rubygems.rb, gem will go back to using the original system-installed version and all will be fine; alternately, you can patch /Library/Ruby/Site/2.0.0/rubygems/defaults.rb to change the bindir.

        Before:

        $ /usr/bin/ruby -e 'require "rubygems/defaults"; puts Gem.default_bindir'
/usr/bin

        After:

        $ /usr/bin/ruby -e 'require "rubygems/defaults"; puts Gem.default_bindir'
/usr/local/bin
      1. 1
        JonahBraun avatar JonahBraun 8 years ago | link | on: Iframe irony: Adblock Plus is probably the reason Firefox and Chrome are such memory hogs

        If you run Privacy Badger you don’t need an ad blocker.

        1. 8
          misty avatar misty 8 years ago | link

          Privacy Badger is based on the ABP code, so I’d expect it to have the same problems described in the article.

        1. 2
          misty avatar misty 8 years ago | link | on: DIY High-Speed Book Scanner from Trash and Cheap Cameras

          Just a note, this is actually an older version of the design for this scanner. Up-to-date instructions (including a laser-cut kit you can buy or make!) is available here.