uuencode: fstat-ing a.txt: Bad file descriptor

[alxdrl]

Hi,

Just came across the following problem running uuencode command with stdin closed (CentOS 7.4 / 3.10.0-693.11.6.el7.x86_64) :

uuencode --version
uuencode (GNU sharutils) 4.13.3
> a.txt ; uuencode a.txt a.txt <&- ; echo $?
uuencode: fstat-ing a.txt: Bad file descriptor
1

This did not fail in older versions of CentOS :

uuencode --version
uuencode - GNU sharutils 4.2.1
> a.txt ; uuencode a.txt a.txt <&- ; echo $?
begin 666 a.txt
`
end
0

Yet under CentOS 7.4 strace-ing the command removes the problem, ie :

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
> a.txt
exec <&-
uuencode a.txt a.txt
echo $?

yields

uuencode: fstat-ing a.txt: Bad file descriptor
1

whereas

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash
> a.txt
exec <&-
strace uuencode a.txt a.txt
echo $?

yields

begin 644 a.txt
`
end
0

Any hint about this discrepancies and what might cause this error (beside uuencode version) ?

Cheers,

[TrevorH]

You are more than 3 years out of date. Run yum update to get current on the only supported version which is 7.7.

[alxdrl]

Hi,

I’m OK with the advice, but I’m not looking for a fix.

I’m looking for input here as to the diagnosis of this error

Thanks.