[solved] Forum registration bug

karol · 2012-11-07 21:46:13

Is this fixed?

The registration question still is

What is the output of "date -u +%W$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'"?

Should I open a bug report?

Last edited by karol (2013-03-14 18:45:41)

Jristz · 2012-11-09 18:32:05

the above command "date -u +%W$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'" not work on fish shell
because:

fish: Did you mean (COMMAND)? In fish, the “$” character is only used for accessing variables. To learn more about command substitution in fish, type “help expand-command-substitution”.
date -u +%W$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'

begimo@Bahamuth ~> date -u +%W$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'

WorMzy · 2012-11-09 19:19:04

Seems to be working for plenty of people: https://bbs.archlinux.org/userlist.php? … rch=Submit

litemotiv · 2012-11-09 19:30:59

WorMzy wrote:

Seems to be working for plenty of people: https://bbs.archlinux.org/userlist.php? … rch=Submit

It's fascinating to see how many people register and then never write a post.

Stebalien · 2012-11-09 19:35:48

WorMzy wrote:

Seems to be working for plenty of people: https://bbs.archlinux.org/userlist.php? … rch=Submit

They are almost definitely not using 'fish' as their shell. To avoid this problem, the command could be changed to:

bash -c 'date -u +%W$(uname)|sha256sum|sed "s/\\W//g"'

However, a simple "use bash or a POSIX compatible shell" directive would suffice.

karol · 2012-11-09 21:02:18

There's also https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/32066

fsckd · 2012-11-09 21:12:49

Deja-vu: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=147631

dontbugme · 2012-11-09 23:44:17

This problem is still not fixed.

I just tried to register, but always says:

Sorry, your answer was wrong. Try again!

I tired different Week numbers without success. E.g.:

d41f3a76dbc185d0b44b6505788d805183cf9614142d2e76a4aa40507c880d94
3df9dd2da89ae988b7e49c8a988d116133a255a58d8d4e62608ebc5fbfe2488f
bdf033b066a24c038b886ea72817ccc9ed5ea7d587def04b725713b4c3db8b91

Why not just using a "normal" prove?
For mee it was hard to generate the string because I got problems installing Linux and want to create the account for asking questions how to install Linux.
Without Linux I can't create the string --> no string --> no account --> no solution --> ...

PS: This is not posted from my own account.

karol · 2012-11-10 03:46:10

You don't have to install Linux, a liveCD is enough.

dontbugme · 2012-11-10 11:29:44

karol wrote:

You don't have to install Linux, a liveCD is enough.

How does this fix the problem with the string?
It is just a way to generate it (a very complecated/uncomfortable compared to some real turing tests for humans).

But the problem that none of the strings still exists.
No mather what way to genereate the string.
There is a problem with this question.

If everything is fine maybe some one could give me a working string.
(You could use a LiveCD if you are happy with that)

WorMzy · 2012-11-10 12:46:37

Your second example of the three you posted is what I'm getting. Are you sure that doesn't work?

Awebb · 2012-11-10 12:51:59

Have a look at the output without the sha and sed parts. It should give you a hint wether it is correct or not.

dontbugme · 2012-11-10 14:46:28

WorMzy wrote:

Your second example of the three you posted is what I'm getting. Are you sure that doesn't work?

Yes this is the one with the current week. I know.
But it doesn't work. If it works I wouldn't post here.

Awebb wrote:

Have a look at the output without the sha and sed parts. It should give you a hint wether it is correct or not.

Sure? ... No help.
What do you think is the difference between the 3 strings I posted?
(Aktual, +1, -1)

Maybe some one else help a:

pacman -S ntp
ntpd -qg

But I would suggest to change the question.

Last edited by dontbugme (2012-11-12 19:10:37)

karol · 2012-11-14 13:33:38

I posted to the ML, because I'm not sure about the scope of the bug report i.e. do we want the registration question friendlier for other shells and non-Linux systems: https://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail … 32093.html

browntown · 2012-11-20 06:59:28

Hi, I'm new to archlinux, but have been playing with it for a couple days. I too couldn't register until I changed my laptop's bios clock to UTC. This allowed arch to correctly apply my time zone change. I suspect that since arch thought my local time was UTC, and the challenge asks for UTC (date-u) that it used the wrong date.

ie. It's 11pm here but utc is 7am tomorrow. Since arch thought my bios clock was UTC, it applied my west coast -8hours to 11pm today, which screws up the argument.

So, I don't know that it is a bug so much as when you install arch on a former windows computer, people might be advised to set their bios to UTC.

Or make a simpler challenge question.... The challenge probably scares off many newbies wanting to learn about Arch.

Last edited by browntown (2012-11-20 07:00:03)

ngoonee · 2012-11-20 07:03:07

browntown wrote:

Or make a simpler challenge question.... The challenge probably scares off many newbies wanting to learn about Arch.

Welcome to the forums. As you participate, you'll find that 'newbies' isn't really Arch's target audience (arguably, Arch does not HAVE a target audience). While the problems regarding the first week of the year will be addressed for correctness, this is not at all to encourage more users to register here.

karol · 2012-11-20 10:23:09

browntown wrote:

Or make a simpler challenge question....

If you want changes, it's best to suggest some well thought out alternatives instead of saying 'make it different'. Arch devs often use a 'patches welcome' approach.
The question used to be much different, but still some had problems registering: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 67#p569467
Then came the spammers: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=104892

ngoonee wrote:

While the problems regarding the first week of the year will be addressed for correctness

ngoonee is talking about https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/32649

fsckd · 2012-11-20 13:30:08

browntown wrote:

Hi, I'm new to archlinux, but have been playing with it for a couple days. I too couldn't register until I changed my laptop's bios clock to UTC. This allowed arch to correctly apply my time zone change. I suspect that since arch thought my local time was UTC, and the challenge asks for UTC (date-u) that it used the wrong date.
ie. It's 11pm here but utc is 7am tomorrow. Since arch thought my bios clock was UTC, it applied my west coast -8hours to 11pm today, which screws up the argument.
So, I don't know that it is a bug so much as when you install arch on a former windows computer, people might be advised to set their bios to UTC.
Or make a simpler challenge question.... The challenge probably scares off many newbies wanting to learn about Arch.

The challenge has no notion of your computer's local settings. If your system has the wrong time, then date will produce the wrong output. Garbage in, garbage out. If you want bios to be local time, then you have to tell your OS that. In Arch use timedatectl.

Welcome to Arch.

cgrayce · 2013-01-01 04:38:40

I gather the backend script is not fully consistent with all versions of date(1)? It turns out the switch I needed was %V and not %W after all, since the ISO week is 1 (which the backend required) but %W returns week 0, God knows why. I dunno, I found that kind of annoying. Nor am I a n00b: I've been using Linux since 1994, Unix since 1988, and Multics since 1981. I realize it doesn't happen that often, maybe only on or about January 1, but why not use %H or %j? Either is unambiguous and plain, whereas Wikipedia requires about eight paragraphs to explain what the ISO week is, and there's this odd V/W switch issue in date(1).

Snark1994 · 2013-01-03 10:57:23

+1 for cgrayce's: after this issue on the LinuxQuestions forums: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions … ost4861923, it turns out that

echo "00Linux" | sha256sum | sed 's/\W//g';

doesn't work (with "00" being the correct output of

date -u +%W

on the 3rd January) while

echo "01Linux" | sha256sum | sed 's/\W//g';

does work ("01" is incorrect for %W, but correct for %V, as already noted here).

However, for the suggestion of %H and %j, the problems with %H would be that you would have to have a bang-on system clock for it to work, and similarly for %j there would be problems with people registering at about midnight every day...

karol · 2013-03-14 18:45:24

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/32649#comment104721
The question has been changed to

What is the output of "date -u +%V$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'"?

so I'm marking this thread as solved, even though the bug report is still open.

dagelf · 2013-11-22 10:21:22

I just registered.... It gave me an error 2 times though. The string I pasted the first time was exactly the same as the one that eventually got accepted.

Just sayin'.

dagelf · 2013-11-22 10:23:18

PS Shortcut if you want to use cygwin or another Unix:

# date -u +%VLinux|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'

boxbot · 2014-04-21 03:55:27

dagelf wrote:

I just registered.... It gave me an error 2 times though. The string I pasted the first time was exactly the same as the one that eventually got accepted.
Just sayin'.

Just adding on to say that I had this same problem. Got the "incorrect answer" error message more than three times for the exact same string that eventually got accepted.

rbrband · 2014-04-23 19:55:45

I felt like "Caine" in the intro to "Kung Fu!"

Running XFCE Wheezy. I didn't need SU, nor bash -c. One must get their clock right with UTC. (My BIOS doesn't set the clock to UTC--the OS must. SU terminal--easy search online for good procedure.) Remove both double-quotes, of course--get the string correct.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-11-07 21:46:13

[solved] Forum registration bug

#2 2012-11-09 18:32:05

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#3 2012-11-09 19:19:04

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#4 2012-11-09 19:30:59

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#5 2012-11-09 19:35:48

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#6 2012-11-09 21:02:18

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#7 2012-11-09 21:12:49

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#8 2012-11-09 23:44:17

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#9 2012-11-10 03:46:10

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#10 2012-11-10 11:29:44

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#11 2012-11-10 12:46:37

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#12 2012-11-10 12:51:59

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#13 2012-11-10 14:46:28

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#14 2012-11-14 13:33:38

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#15 2012-11-20 06:59:28

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#16 2012-11-20 07:03:07

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#17 2012-11-20 10:23:09

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#18 2012-11-20 13:30:08

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#19 2013-01-01 04:38:40

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#20 2013-01-03 10:57:23

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#21 2013-03-14 18:45:24

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#22 2013-11-22 10:21:22

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#23 2013-11-22 10:23:18

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#24 2014-04-21 03:55:27

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

#25 2014-04-23 19:55:45

Re: [solved] Forum registration bug

Board footer