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[Bug 1249858] Re: Mahara can't figure out mime types because of a finfo() bug

 

Wow, that was a lot of code! So here's what we wound up doing:

1. Added some logic that tries different magicdb locations at install or
upgrade time. If it finds one that works, it stores that in a config
option and always uses that one. If it finds that none work, then it
won't try to use fileinfo in the future.

2. Added a config-defaults.php option for advanced users to specify a
different magic db location.

3. Added a parameter to file_mime_type() that allows it to get the
original (uploaded) name of the file, so that if fileinfo doesn't work
we can check the file's extension.

4. Changed the upload code so that it trusts file_mime_type() more than
it trusts the browser-supplied mimetype

** Changed in: mahara/1.6
       Status: In Progress => Fix Committed

** Changed in: mahara/1.7
       Status: In Progress => Fix Committed

** Changed in: mahara/1.9
       Status: In Progress => Fix Committed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1249858

Title:
  Mahara can't figure out mime types because of a finfo() bug

Status in Mahara ePortfolio:
  Fix Committed
Status in Mahara 1.6 series:
  Fix Committed
Status in Mahara 1.7 series:
  Fix Committed
Status in Mahara 1.8 series:
  Fix Committed
Status in Mahara 1.9 series:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  There have been several notable Mahara bugs based around the fact that
  our current handling of mimetypes is broken.

  See for instance:
   - https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1220639
   - https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/1249166

  The problem is this:

  1. You can't really trust the mimetype that the browser sends to you, because different browsers send different wacky things
  2. Mahara has long used its own function file_mime_type() in lib/file.php for this purpose
  3. file_mime_type() preferentially uses finfo() to check the mimetype. But, there's a bug in finfo() with an external magic db, which is how it is distributed on Ubuntu presently: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=61940
  4. file_mime_type() falls back to mime_content_type(). But that's now deprecated
  5. If neither of those works, we fall back to trusting what the browser told us, which isn't really the best (see #1)

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References