Re: tramp (2.6.2.29.2 nil/nil); wrong-type-argument "stringp #[0 \\300\\207 [my actual password.."

[Ethan Glasser-Camp]

OK, I think I figured out what's going on. The closure used in `auth-source-secrets-create` relies on lexical binding, which is present in `auth-source.el` because of the `lexical-binding: t` at the top of the file. It isn't present in my init file, which is where I had copied the new version of `auth-source-secrets-create`. So, yes, it was user error and had to do with how I patched things. I think everything works now, thanks again for humoring me!

Ethan

On Fri, Jun 21, 2024 at 10:10 AM Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de> wrote:

Ethan Glasser-Camp <ethan.glasser.camp@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Michael,

Hi Ethan,

> this patch makes more sense to me, thanks! I guess this
> means that the entries with `root@black-diamond` are sort of
> deprecated and I should be trying to move to `ethan@black-diamond`
> entries instead.

You could keep them or you could remove them. They should simply be
ignored, because "root@..." does not match your use case.

> I was able to use this patch successfully once, with a moved-aside .
> emacs.d. I was asked for a password for `ethan@black-diamond` , then I
> was asked for a label, and then I was asked whether I wanted to save
> it to my keyring.

And then? Was it added to your "Login" keyring?

> However, at first, with my normal .emacs.d and without the
> `ethan@black-diamond` entry being present, I was asked for a password
> for `ethan@black-diamond`, and then I was asked for a label, and then
> I was asked again for a password. It didn't seem to create an entry in
> my "Login" keyring.

Are you sure you gave the proper password? This scenario looks rather
like there was a wrong password, and auth-source has asked, again. But
in this case it doesn't save the password, IIRC.

> I got kinda sucked in to trying to debug this (even removing the
> `ethan@black-diamond` entry even though it did get created
> successfully once). I deleted the `ethan@black-diamond` entry from my
> keyring, and then tried again with the moved-aside .emacs.d, but.. I
> couldn't get it to work properly again!
>
> It looks like tramp is trying to get the secret from auth-source, then
> hitting an error condition, and then falling back to the
> `password-read` function.

Yes. This is the fallback.

> By adding a bunch of debugging output, and removing the
> `ignore-errors` call in `tramp-read-passwd`, I was able to retrieve
> the error message `Symbol’s value as variable is void: data`. As best
> as I can tell, it seems to be the closure around the secret in
> `auth-source-secrets-create`:
>
> ```
>         (when data
>           (setq artificial (plist-put artificial
>                                       (auth-source--symbol-keyword r)
>                                       (if (eq r 'secret)
>                                           (let ((data data))
>                                             (lambda () data))
>                                         data))))
> ```
>
> I'm not really clear why this wouldn't work. Maybe it's user error?
> I'm not sure if I'm supposed to byte-compile the function or
> something.

I cannot reproduce this. However, I don't know how you did patch and
recompile auth-source.el. Perhaps we should agree to test with the same
codebase, see below.

> (My current debugging setup is to `rm -rf .emacs.d', then `emacs`,
> then open up a file called `tmp.el` that starts with:
>
> ```
> (require 'secrets)
> (require 'tramp)
> (require 'auth-source)
>
> (setq auth-sources '("secrets:Login"))
> (setq auth-source-debug t
>       auth-source-save-behavior 'ask
>       tramp-verbose 7
>       secrets-debug t)
> ```

This still keeps the contents of your .emacs active, which I don't
know. What I do is

- Move .emacs to .emacs.sv

- Create a new .emacs with the same contents as you have, plus (at the end)

(auth-source-forget-all-cached)

- Start 'emacs /sudo::'

1st run: secrets:Login does not contain root@gandalf or
albinus@gandalf. I'm asked for the label and whether to create the
entry. The directory is opened, and the entry albinus@gandalf is
contained in the "login" keyring. *Messages* contains

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Tramp: Opening connection nil for root@gandalf using sudo...
auth-source-search: found 0 results (max 1) matching (:max 1 :user "albinus" :host "gandalf" :port "sudo" :require (:secret :user) :create t)
auth-source-search: found 0 results (max 1) matching (:max 1 :host "gandalf" :user "albinus" :port "sudo")
auth-source-search: CREATED 1 results (max 1) matching (:max 1 :user "albinus" :host "gandalf" :port "sudo" :require (:secret :user) :create t)
Save auth info to secrets collection Login? [y/n/N/?] y
secrets-create-item: wrote 1 new item to Login
Saved new authentication information to Login
Tramp: Opening connection nil for root@gandalf using sudo...done
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Fine. Close Emacs.

2nd run: secrets:Login contains albinus@gandalf. The directory opens w/o
asking for a password. *Messages* contains

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Tramp: Opening connection nil for root@gandalf using sudo...
auth-source-search: found 1 results (max 1) matching (:max 1 :user "albinus" :host "gandalf" :port "sudo" :require (:secret :user) :create t)
Tramp: Opening connection nil for root@gandalf using sudo...done
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Everything as it should.

3rd run: Delete "albinus@gandalf" in keyring "Login", and add (manually)
"root@password". The same dialogue about creation like in 1st run, and
*Messages* contains

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Tramp: Opening connection nil for root@gandalf using sudo...
auth-source-search: found 0 results (max 1) matching (:max 1 :user "albinus" :host "gandalf" :port "sudo" :require (:secret :user) :create t)
auth-source-search: found 0 results (max 1) matching (:max 1 :host "gandalf" :user "albinus" :port "sudo")
auth-source-search: CREATED 1 results (max 1) matching (:max 1 :user "albinus" :host "gandalf" :port "sudo" :require (:secret :user) :create t)
Save auth info to secrets collection Login? [y/n/N/?] y
secrets-create-item: wrote 1 new item to Login
Saved new authentication information to Login
Tramp: Opening connection nil for root@gandalf using sudo...done
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Everything as expected. The "Login" keyring contains both
"albinus@gandalf" and "root@gandalf".

4th run: Keep both entries in the "Login" keyring. Exactly the same
behavior as in the 2nd run (no question about the password, the
directory opens). *Messages* contains

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Tramp: Opening connection nil for root@gandalf using sudo...
auth-source-search: found 1 results (max 1) matching (:max 1 :user "albinus" :host "gandalf" :port "sudo" :require (:secret :user) :create t)
Tramp: Opening connection nil for root@gandalf using sudo...done
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

So all 4 scenarios behave like expected.

> ... and then continues with versions of functions like
> `auth-source-secrets-create`, `auth-source-search`,
> `auth-source-secrets-search`, `auth-source-secrets-saver`,
> `tramp-read-passwd`, some of which I have hacked up to add debugging
> output. I M-x eval-buffer this file and then C-x C-f /sudo:: RET.)
>
> By the way, since I started this thread, I updated NixOS and now I'm
> using emacs 29.3, although I don't think that much has changed in this
> version.

Well, perhaps you shouldn't patch Tramp or auth-source.el in your Emacs
29.3 directory. Please download auth-source.el from the Emacs git
(branch emacs-29), replace it in your lisp/ directory, and byte-compile
this new file. Then you have almost the same versions I have used for
testing. No other patch is needed.

The recent file is located at <https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/emacs.git/plain/lisp/auth-source.el?h=emacs-29>.

> Ethan

Best regards, Michael.