usbguard fails to start if rule line in rules.conf ends with space character.

[jk-10]

It seems that usbguard fails to start if rule line in rules.conf ends with space character. (Problem may also occur with other lines, i did not check that.)

I added a new rule and tried to stop and start usbguard again:

jk@ktt:~$ sudo service usbguard start
jk@ktt:~$ service usbguard status
● usbguard.service - USBGuard daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/usbguard.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2022-12-01 15:27:44 EET; 4s ago
       Docs: man:usbguard-daemon(8)
    Process: 859369 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/usbguard-daemon -k -c /etc/usbguard/usbguard-daemon.conf (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 859369 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

joulu 01 15:27:44 ktt systemd[1]: usbguard.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
joulu 01 15:27:44 ktt systemd[1]: Stopped USBGuard daemon.
joulu 01 15:27:44 ktt systemd[1]: usbguard.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
joulu 01 15:27:44 ktt systemd[1]: usbguard.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
joulu 01 15:27:44 ktt systemd[1]: Failed to start USBGuard daemon.

Then I removed the space at the end of the newly added rule line and tried again:

jk@ktt:~$ sudo service usbguard start
jk@ktt:~$ service usbguard status
● usbguard.service - USBGuard daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/usbguard.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2022-12-01 15:28:21 EET; 6s ago
       Docs: man:usbguard-daemon(8)
   Main PID: 859471 (usbguard-daemon)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 9274)
     Memory: 1.4M
     CGroup: /system.slice/usbguard.service
             └─859471 /usr/sbin/usbguard-daemon -k -c /etc/usbguard/usbguard-daemon.conf

Please add support for having spaces or make usbguard to remove them automatically when reading the conf file.

I don't know the usbguard version, but it is the default version coming with the Ubuntu 22.04 which is my OS.

[hartwork]

Hi @jk-10,

I confirm that single trailing spaces in rules.conf. Here is how to reproduce it easily and the precise error output I get:

# sudo /etc/init.d/usbguard stop  # or a systemd equivalent
# cd "$(mktemp -d)"
# sudo usbguard generate-policy > rules.conf
# echo "RuleFile=${PWD}/rules.conf" > usbguard-daemon.conf
# sed 's,$, ,' -i rules.conf  # inserts trailing whitespace
# sudo usbguard-daemon -d -k -P -c ./usbguard-daemon.conf -l ./usbguard-daemon.log
[..]
[1669913599.512] (E) Rules: SourceLOCAL::/tmp/tmp.B7cpfOgomY/rules.conf: :1:225: parse error matching sor<usbguard::RuleParser::comment, usbguard::RuleParser::rule>

This is with USBGuard version 1.1.2. I'm assuming you are running 1.1.1+ds-3 because of your mention of Ubuntu 22.04 (codenamed "jammy").