Re: [PATCH 1/2] Treat Windows Store's "app execution aliases" as symbolic links

[Joe Lowe <joe@pismotec.com>]

Hi Johannes,

I agree on the usefulness to the user of showing appexec target 
executable as symlink target. But I am uncertain about the effect on code.

One example: Any app that is able to archive/copy posix symlinks will 
convert the appexec to a symlink and silently drop the appexec data. 
Whether this is a significant issue depends on if most/all relevent 
store apps function the same when the executable is exec-ed directly vs 
via the appexec link.

Another example: Much code exists in the field that intentionally 
detects symlinks, dereferences, and works directly on the target. This 
may not be an issue, if most/all relevent store apps function the same 
when the executable is exec-ed directly vs via the appexec link.


Joe L.



On 3/13/2021 4:21 PM, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> Hi Joe,
> 
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2021, Joe Lowe wrote:
> 
>> I am skeptical about this patch (part 1), interposing appexec reparse point
>> data as symlinks for cygwin applications.
>>
>> The appexec reparse point data is essentially an extended attribute holding
>> data that is used by CreateProcess(), more like a windows .lnk file or an X11
>> .desktop file, not like a posix symlink. M$ just chose an unnecessarily obtuse
>> way to store the files data. This reminds me of old Macintosh zero length font
>> files.
> 
> The obvious difference being that you cannot read those 0-length files.
> And you _can_ determine the target from reading .lnk or .desktop files.
> 
>> The useful function of the patch would seem to be as a way to display a
>> portion of the data in shell directory listings for the user. I suggest this
>> function is better provided by updated application code.
> 
> I find your argument unconvincing.
> 
> For all practical purposes, users are likely to want to treat app
> execution aliases as if they were symbolic links.
> 
> If users want to know more about the app execution alias than just the
> path of the actual `.exe` (and that is a rather huge if), _then_ I would
> buy your argument that it should be queried via application code.
> 
> But for the common case of reading the corresponding `.exe` or accessing
> the path? Why should we follow your suggestion and keep making it really
> hard for users to get to that information? I really don't get it.
> 
> Ciao,
> Johannes
> 
>>
>>
>> The patch part 2 seems entirely appropriate.
>>
>>
>> Joe L.
>>
>>
>> On 2021-03-12 07:11, Johannes Schindelin via Cygwin-patches wrote:
>>> When the Windows Store version of Python is installed, so-called "app
>>> execution aliases" are put into the `PATH`. These are reparse points
>>> under the hood, with an undocumented format.
>>>
>>> We do know a bit about this format, though, as per the excellent analysis:
>>> https://www.tiraniddo.dev/2019/09/overview-of-windows-execution-aliases.html
>>>
>>>   The first 4 bytes is the reparse tag, in this case it's
>>>   0x8000001B which is documented in the Windows SDK as
>>>   IO_REPARSE_TAG_APPEXECLINK. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to
>>>   be a corresponding structure, but with a bit of reverse
>>>   engineering we can work out the format is as follows:
>>>
>>>   Version: <4 byte integer>
>>>   Package ID: <NUL Terminated Unicode String>
>>>   Entry Point: <NUL Terminated Unicode String>
>>>   Executable: <NUL Terminated Unicode String>
>>>   Application Type: <NUL Terminated Unicode String>
>>>
>>> Let's treat them as symbolic links. For example, in this developer's
>>> setup, this will result in the following nice output:
>>>
>>>   $ cd $LOCALAPPDATA/Microsoft/WindowsApps/
>>>
>>>   $ ls -l python3.exe
>>>   lrwxrwxrwx 1 me 4096 105 Aug 23  2020 python3.exe -> '/c/Program
>>>   Files/WindowsApps/PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.7_3.7.2544.0_x64__qbz5n2kfra8p0/python.exe'
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
>>> ---
>>>    winsup/cygwin/path.cc | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>    1 file changed, 24 insertions(+)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/winsup/cygwin/path.cc b/winsup/cygwin/path.cc
>>> index f3b9913bd0..63f377efb1 100644
>>> --- a/winsup/cygwin/path.cc
>>> +++ b/winsup/cygwin/path.cc
>>> @@ -2538,6 +2538,30 @@ check_reparse_point_target (HANDLE h, bool remote,
>>> PREPARSE_DATA_BUFFER rp,
>>>           if (check_reparse_point_string (psymbuf))
>>>     return PATH_SYMLINK | PATH_REP;
>>>        }
>>> +  else if (!remote && rp->ReparseTag == IO_REPARSE_TAG_APPEXECLINK)
>>> +    {
>>> +      /* App execution aliases are commonly used by Windows Store apps. */
>>> +      WCHAR *buf = (WCHAR *)(rp->GenericReparseBuffer.DataBuffer + 4);
>>> +      DWORD size = rp->ReparseDataLength / sizeof(WCHAR), n;
>>> +
>>> +      /*
>>> +         It seems that app execution aliases have a payload of four
>>> +	 NUL-separated wide string: package id, entry point, executable
>>> +	 and application type. We're interested in the executable. */
>>> +      for (int i = 0; i < 3 && size > 0; i++)
>>> +        {
>>> +	  n = wcsnlen (buf, size - 1);
>>> +	  if (i == 2 && n > 0 && n < size)
>>> +	    {
>>> +	      RtlInitCountedUnicodeString (psymbuf, buf, n * sizeof(WCHAR));
>>> +	      return PATH_SYMLINK | PATH_REP;
>>> +	    }
>>> +	  if (i == 2)
>>> +	    break;
>>> +	  buf += n + 1;
>>> +	  size -= n + 1;
>>> +	}
>>> +    }
>>>      else if (rp->ReparseTag == IO_REPARSE_TAG_LX_SYMLINK)
>>>        {
>>>          /* WSL symlink.  Problem: We have to convert the path to UTF-16 for
>>> --
>>> 2.30.2
>>>
>>
>>