Rust bootstrap silently fails on fresh Ubuntu 22.04 when curl is missing

[t-kalinowski]

pak silently fails to bootstrap Rust on fresh Ubuntu 22.04 when curl is missing

I can reproduce this in a fresh rocker/r2u:jammy container.

Minimal failing repro:

docker run --rm --platform linux/amd64 rocker/r2u:jammy \
  bash -lc 'apt-get update >/dev/null && apt-get install -y r-cran-pak >/dev/null && R -q -e '\''pak::pak("hellorust")'\'''

This logs:

ℹ Executing `sh -c curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- --no-modify-path -y`

and then later fails because cargo / rustc are still not found.

I can reproduce the same behavior with a rextendr package as well:

docker run --rm --platform linux/amd64 rocker/r2u:jammy \
  bash -lc 'apt-get update >/dev/null && apt-get install -y r-cran-pak >/dev/null && R -q -e '\''pak::pak("tergo")'\'''

In this base image, curl is not installed:

docker run --rm --platform linux/amd64 rocker/r2u:jammy \
  bash -lc 'which curl || true'

If I preinstall curl, the same pak install succeeds for hellorust:

docker run --rm --platform linux/amd64 rocker/r2u:jammy \
  bash -lc 'apt-get update >/dev/null && apt-get install -y curl r-cran-pak >/dev/null && R -q -e '\''pak::pak("hellorust")'\'''

So this looks like the Rust bootstrap command is being run via a shell pipeline where curl: not found is masked, and pak proceeds as if the bootstrap succeeded.

Expected behavior:

• fail the Rust bootstrap step if curl is missing, or
• ensure curl is installed before using that command, or
• avoid the shell pipeline in a way that preserves the real exit status

Related reports:

• Build error installing on ubuntu 22.04 LTS hadley/bananarama#2
• Build failure on ubuntu 22.04 LTS posit-dev/r-yaml12#8

[t-kalinowski]

Follow-up: I reran the repro directly against yaml12 and the full output does include an informative error:

docker run --rm --platform linux/amd64 rocker/r2u:jammy \
 bash -lc 'apt-get update >/dev/null && apt-get install -y r-cran-pak >/dev/null && R -q -e '\''pak::pak("yaml12")'\'''

> pak::pak("yaml12")

✔ Updated metadata database: 3.32 MB in 8 files.

ℹ Updating metadata database
yaml✔ Updating metadata database ... done

 
→ Will install 1 package.
→ Will download 1 CRAN package (1.49 MB).
+ yaml12   0.1.0 [bld][cmp][dl] (1.49 MB) + rust (installer), ✔ xz-utils
✔ All system requirements are already installed.
  
ℹ Getting 1 pkg (1.49 MB)
✔ Got yaml12 0.1.0 (source) (1.49 MB)
ℹ Installing system requirements
ℹ Executing `sh -c apt-get -y update`
ℹ Executing `sh -c curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- --no-modify-path -y`
ℹ Building yaml12 0.1.0
✖ Failed to build yaml12 0.1.0 (7.9s)
Error: 
! error in pak subprocess
Caused by error in `stop_task_build(state, worker)`:
! Failed to build source package yaml12.
Full installation output:
* installing *source* package ‘yaml12’ ...
** this is package ‘yaml12’ version ‘0.1.0’
** package ‘yaml12’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
staged installation is only possible with locking
** using non-staged installation
sh: 1: rustc: not found
Error in value[[3L]](cond) : 
  ----------------------- [RUST NOT FOUND]---------------------------
The 'rustc' compiler was not found on the PATH. Please install
rustc >= 1.70.0 or higher from:
https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install

Alternatively, you may install Rust from your OS package manager:
 - Debian/Ubuntu: apt-get install rustc
 - Fedora/CentOS: dnf install rustc
 - macOS: brew install rust
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Calls: source ... tryCatch -> tryCatchList -> tryCatchOne -> <Anonymous>
Execution halted
ERROR: configuration failed for package ‘yaml12’
* removing ‘/tmp/RtmpjRBG5v/pkg-lib3a765a36da6/yaml12’
---
Backtrace:
1. pak::pak("yaml12")
2. pak::pkg_install(pkg, ...)
3. pak:::remote(function(...) get("pkg_install_do_plan", asNamespace("pak"))(...), …
4. err$throw(res$error)
---
Subprocess backtrace:
 1. base::withCallingHandlers(cli_message = function(msg) { …
 2. get("pkg_install_do_plan", asNamespace("pak"))(...)
 3. proposal$install()
 4. pkgdepends::install_package_plan(plan, lib = private$library, num_workers = nw, …
 5. base::withCallingHandlers({ …
 6. pkgdepends:::handle_events(state, events)
 7. pkgdepends:::handle_event(state, i)
 8. pkgdepends:::stop_task(state, worker)
 9. pkgdepends:::stop_task_build(state, worker)
10. base::throw(pkg_error("Failed to build source package {.pkg {pkg}}.", …
11. | base::signalCondition(cond)
12. global (function (e) …
Execution halted

However the original bananarama report did not include the error message about rustc being unavailable. It seems that that error message was swallowed somewhere, or replaced with the grepl() error, but I could not reproduce that.