[pkg-gnupg-maint] Dropping GSM_SKIP_SSH_AGENT_WORKAROUND workaround in systemd socket scripts

Daniel Kahn Gillmor dkg at fifthhorseman.net
Thu Jan 30 15:54:43 GMT 2025


Hey GnuPG folks in debian--

I'm trying to do more cleanup on the patches we're carrying for GnuPG in
debian, and i note that we're setting this GSM_SKIP_SSH_AGENT_WORKAROUND
environment variable in gpg-agent-ssh.socket:

```
# See the below link for why we need GSM_SKIP_SSH_AGENT_WORKAROUND:
# https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-session/tree/gnome-session/main.c?h=3.24.0#n419
# in order to avoid race condition this environment should be set before SSH_AUTH_SOCK
ExecStartPre=systemctl --user set-environment GSM_SKIP_SSH_AGENT_WORKAROUND="true"
```

The link above doesn't say anything about GSM_SKIP_SSH_AGENT_WORKAROUND.

The initial mention of the environment variable i could find was in
https://bugs.debian.org/855868 from 2017 (over 7 years ago), where rufo
(in cc) said:

> At least until this patch
> (https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-session/commit/?id=818266a898b803960ce8dd6d330c1ef6934bba46)
> lands in gnome-session-bin, we also need to set
> GSM_SKIP_SSH_AGENT_WORKAROUND to prevent our SSH_AUTH_SOCK from being
> clobbered.  Updated script below.

That URL is wrong today, but correct commit is at:

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-session/-/commit/818266a898b803960ce8dd6d330c1ef6934bba46

Which was rolled into gnome-session 3.25.3.  oldoldstable is at 3.30.1,
so i think this is safe to remove.

I've also looked at
https://codesearch.debian.net/search?q=GSM_SKIP_SSH_AGENT_WORKAROUND&literal=1
and there is no other package in debian that contains this string at
all.

Just wanted to give a heads-up about this cleanup in case anyone has
other information.

      --dkg
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