[Bug 2027979] Re: won't warn neither prevent usage of « risky » characters in labels

[Theodore Ts'o]

Flawed by what definition? Editors allow people to create files with
spaces, or with dollar signs, or with accepted characters. Some of these
characters may require quoting if you use spaces or doll=lars. Not
allowing accented characters will cause speakers of various European
languages to complain that you're not letting them use french words in
file names (or file system labels), and this is an unacceptable English
language hegemony over the great languange which is French. :-)

In fact, there's nothing wrong with using any of these characters in
file system labels. For example, look at /dev/disk/by-label for a
filesystem set with "e2label /tmp/foo.img foo\$bar":

# ls /dev/disk/by-label/
total 0
ext-disk 'foo\x24bar' lambda-backup old-files@
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^
And with the filename label set via "e2label /tmp/foo.img Misère"

# /bin/ls /dev/disk/by-label
ext-disk lambda-backup Misère old-files
                         ^^^^^^^

So how are these characters flawed? what makes them be forced to wear a
large scarlet letter "A" over their clothing? Why shouldn't the french
be allowed to use accepted characters in file names or in file system
labels?

Inquiring minds want to know.... but as the upstream maintainer of
e2fsprogs, I absolutely reject this as a bug.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2027979

Title:
  won't warn neither prevent usage of « risky » characters in labels

Status in e2fsprogs package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Hi,

  if naming or renaming an EXT volume,

  e2label lets you use any character, including / or * or $ ( and
  probably others, like accented letters é è à )

  I'd expect at least a warning if such are to be found in a label name.

  Or better, it should not be possible to use those in label names.

  Example :

  a at p:~$ sudo e2label /dev/sdb12 /Ti\$*
  a at p:~$

  a at p:~$ sudo e2label /dev/sdb12
  /Ti$*
  a at p:~$

  a at p:~$ lsblk -fe7 | grep sdb12
  └─sdb12   ext4              1.0   /Ti$*             f583e9b0-f1de-438f-8da8-c1e070407628
  a at p:~$

  coming from https://forum.ubuntu-
  fr.org/viewtopic.php?pid=22692892#p22692892 ( french )

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