Bug#1011525: systemd: when running journalctl, $LESS is unconditionally set to FRSXMK

[Vincent Lefevre]

Package: systemd
Version: 251-2
Severity: minor

Note: on my machine, /usr/bin/pager points to the "less" alternative.

When I run journalctl, searching for strings in the "less" pager is
case-sensitive, while I have -i in $LESS.

I've eventually found that my LESS environment variable was replaced
by "FRSXMK", but this is not documented. I could see this by putting
a "pager" script in my $PATH, where I output the $LESS value.

Well, journalctl(1) mentions "FRSXMK", but nothing about the LESS
environment variable (these options could be passed as a "less"
argument), and what "default" means is ambiguous (when the user
defines $LESS, he changes the default).

If the user has his own LESS environment variable, it should be kept,
otherwise the behavior is surprising.

-- Package-specific info:

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bookworm/sid
  APT prefers unstable-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 5.17.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/12 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE, TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=POSIX, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages systemd depends on:
ii  adduser          3.121
ii  libacl1          2.3.1-1
ii  libapparmor1     3.0.4-2
ii  libaudit1        1:3.0.7-1+b1
ii  libblkid1        2.38-4
ii  libc6            2.33-7
ii  libcap2          1:2.44-1
ii  libcrypt1        1:4.4.27-1.1
ii  libcryptsetup12  2:2.4.3-1
ii  libfdisk1        2.38-4
ii  libgcrypt20      1.10.1-2
ii  libgnutls30      3.7.4-2
ii  libgpg-error0    1.45-2
ii  libip4tc2        1.8.8-1
ii  libkmod2         29-1
ii  liblz4-1         1.9.3-2
ii  liblzma5         5.2.5-2.1
ii  libmount1        2.38-4
ii  libpam0g         1.4.0-13
ii  libseccomp2      2.5.4-1
ii  libselinux1      3.3-1+b2
ii  libsystemd0      251-2
ii  libzstd1         1.5.2+dfsg-1
ii  mount            2.38-4
ii  util-linux       2.38-4

Versions of packages systemd recommends:
ii  dbus [default-dbus-system-bus]   1.14.0-1
ii  systemd-timesyncd [time-daemon]  251-2

Versions of packages systemd suggests:
ii  libfido2-1            1.11.0-1
pn  libtss2-esys-3.0.2-0  <none>
pn  libtss2-mu0           <none>
pn  libtss2-rc0           <none>
ii  policykit-1           0.105-33
pn  systemd-container     <none>

Versions of packages systemd is related to:
ii  dbus-user-session  1.14.0-1
pn  dracut             <none>
ii  initramfs-tools    0.141
ii  libnss-systemd     251-2
ii  libpam-systemd     251-2
ii  udev               251-2

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/systemd/journald.conf changed:
[Journal]
Storage=persistent

/etc/systemd/system.conf changed:
[Manager]
DefaultTimeoutStopSec=20s


-- no debconf information

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent at vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)