Bug#836580: systemd: systemctl status pipes through less with escape sequences not applied

[Josh Triplett]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 12:10:34PM +0200, Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> Am Sonntag, 4. September 2016, 14:47:50 CEST schrieb Josh Triplett:
> > On Sun, 04 Sep 2016 10:59:07 +0200 Martin Steigerwald <Martin at Lichtvoll.de> 
> wrote:
> > > Package: systemd
> > > Version: 231-5
> > > Severity: minor
> > > 
> > > Dear Martin, dear Michael, dear Systemd maintainers,
> > > 
> > > systemctl status for a long time just printed the status directly onto the
> > > terminal (Konsole in my case). But since also quite a while it uses less
> > > on
> > > my system, even tough the output is not larger than one page.
> > > 
> > > Also the color escape sequences are not executed by less, leavinge me with
> > > something like:
> > > 
> > > ^[[0;1;32m●^[[0m atopacct.service - Atop process accounting daemon
> > > 
> > >    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/atopacct.service; enabled; vendor
> > >    preset: enabled) Active: ^[[0;1;32mactive (running)^[[0m since So
> > >    2016-09-04 10:48:07 CEST; 1s ago>    
> > >      Docs: man:atopacctd(8)
> > >   
> > >   Process: 5032 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/atopacctd (code=exited,
> > >   status=0/SUCCESS)
> > >  
> > >  Main PID: 5034 (atopacctd)
> > >  
> > >     Tasks: 1 (limit: 4915)
> > >    
> > >    CGroup: /system.slice/atopacct.service
> > >    
> > >            └─5034 /usr/sbin/atopacctd
> > > 
> > > Sep 04 10:48:07 merkaba systemd[1]: Starting Atop process accounting
> > > daemon... Sep 04 10:48:07 merkaba systemd[1]: atopacct.service: PID file
> > > /run/atopacctd.pid not readable (yet?) after start: No such file or
> > > directory Sep 04 10:48:07 merkaba atopacctd[5034]: Version: 2.2-3 -
> > > 2015/06/25 11:07:21 […] Sep 04 10:48:07 merkaba systemd[1]: Started
> > > Atop process accounting daemon. Sep 04 10:48:07 merkaba atopacctd[5034]:
> > > ^[[0;1;39mreactivate process accounting^[[0m
> > Works fine here with systemd 231-5: "systemctl status" uses less, but it
> > interprets color escape sequences, and exits if the output fits entirely
> > on the screen.  Can you provide your environment (output of "env"), and
> > in particular the values of $LESS and $PAGER?  And can you check if this
> > occurs in another terminal, such as xterm?
> 
> Thanks for your answer Josh. I missed it first seems it was sortet more 
> downwards due to old date:
> 
> 
> merkaba:~> systemctl status
> merkaba:~> echo $LESS
>  -w
> merkaba:~> echo $PAGER
> 
> I do not know who has put that "-w" into LESS variable.
> 
> But removing it doesn´t help:
> 
> merkaba:~> unset LESS
> merkaba:~> systemctl status
> ^[[0;1;31m●^[[0m merkaba
>     State: ^[[0;1;31mdegraded^[[0m
>      Jobs: 0 queued
>    Failed: 2 units
>     Since: So 2016-09-25 00:35:01 CEST; 1 day 11h ago
>    CGroup: /
> 
> 
> Same in xterm.
> 
> merkaba:~> apt-show-versions | egrep "^less|^systemd:" | grep amd64
> less:amd64/sid 481-2.1 uptodate
> systemd:amd64/sid 231-7 uptodate

What happens if you explicitly export LESS=R ?  Does that help?

Try running the following in your terminal:

/usr/bin/printf '\e[0;1;31mRED\e[0m'

Does the word "RED" show up in red?

Also try this:

/usr/bin/printf '\e[2J'

Does that clear your screen?