#4750 Samba module: problems with UTF8 attributes with recent versions of perl (possible fix attached)
When adding groups or user names with special characters (e.g. accented names), with perl >= 5.8, in smb.conf the names get double encoded and result in misconfiguration.
The problem arises from the fact that code in samba module that checks and converts utf-8 strings does a basic check of the string and always assumes the internal encoding is iso-8859-1. It then invokes iconv from the shell. With perl >=5.8, where the strings are already utf-8 internally, when writing to the smb.conf file this results in a already utf8 string being double byte encoded.
Seems to me this code was written before perl 5.8. The perfect solution would perhaps be to discontinue older perl versions and simplify the code, using the Encode module when needed (if it is at all necessary, my experience tells me one no longer needs to mess with that in most recent systems). But I guess portability would be desirable for the moment, right?
The following patch simply adds and additional checks on the "to_utf8" and "from_utf8" functions to not try to do conversions with perl >= 5.8, where those conversions aren't needed at all and only cause the aforementioned problems. This check may look "hackish", but the conversion routines on those functions are also a bit hackish right now, and it's a price to pay for portability.
At least in my case, this solved the problem with share paths with accented characters, or setting permissions to active directory group names that also have accented characters. The system where it was tested has the following versions:
CentOS Linux release 7.1.1503 (Core)
perl 5, version 16, subversion 3 (v5.16.3)
Please review the patch. Should you think it's good, please do apply it for the next version, and maybe the same technique can be used for other modules that have similar problems.
Best regards and keep up the good work.
I'm not sure if checking the perl version is the right answer here - instead, maybe the character set currently in use by the Webmin UI should be used?
In your case, what specific directive is causing problems?