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Improve permission error messages in pdb and asyncio.tools #134290

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This PR enhances the user experience when a PermissionError occurs while attempting to attach to a process using pdb -p or tools like asyncio ps and asyncio pstree. It adds platform-specific guidance for Linux, macOS, and Windows to help users understand why the operation failed and how to resolve it (e.g., using sudo, adjusting system settings, or enabling debugging privileges).

Currently, the same logic is duplicated in both pdb and asyncio.tools. If anyone has recommendations on how to avoid this duplication, I’d appreciate input. I couldn't find a clear shared location in the standard library where this kind of utility logic would belong.

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CC @pablogsal

@gaogaotiantian
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gaogaotiantian commented May 21, 2025

Should this live in the code? I think this should live in the docs and we should just print a link for it. This documentation should probably live with sys.remote_exec. We don't want to duplicate this everywhere that uses sys.remote_exec(). I don't think we should have this big chunk of clearly documentation in the code itself.

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pablogsal commented May 21, 2025

Should this live in the code? I think this should live in the docs and we should just print a link for it.

I think so. We want to provide actionable output to the users right where the error happens and not just in the docs. We could put it somewhere in the docs and drop a link there though although I think that is slight worse experience. But I don't feel very strongly

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I think this is too much text living in the code - especially with multiple copies. If we have a third library that utilizes sys.remote_exec, are we going to replicate the whole text again? Under the hood, this is an issue with sys.remote_exec, not the modules that use it. For users that use sys.remote_exec directly, they'll still be confused.

I suggest that we put a link to the docs in the PermissionError itself as a message, so it would be simply shown in the traceback.

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I think this is too much text living in the code - especially with multiple copies. If we have a third library that utilizes sys.remote_exec, are we going to replicate the whole text again? Under the hood, this is an issue with sys.remote_exec, not the modules that use it. For users that use sys.remote_exec directly, they'll still be confused.

Maybe, but one of these cases is not even using remote_exec so is not true that this is an issue with remote_exec. Also, remote_exec is low level so it doesn't need to be prescriptive. Indeed, for pdf is an implementation detail so it doesn't make sense to redirect users to the docs of remote_exec

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, so it would be simply shown in the traceback.

These are CLI tools, we shouldn't show traceback here but a nice friendly error message

@gaogaotiantian
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We can show a message instead of traceback I have no problem with that. I really don't think we should have 50 lines of documentation pasted all over our code base. The detailed explanation should definitely live in the documentation somewhere. We should say something like "You don't have the permission to (retrieve data from?attach to?) another proces, for detailed information, see https://docs.python.org/...". For Unix users, that would directly translate to - try it with sudo and that's not too bad.

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We can show a message instead of traceback I have no problem with that. I really don't think we should have 50 lines of documentation pasted all over our code base. The detailed explanation should definitely live in the documentation somewhere. We should say something like "You don't have the permission to (retrieve data from?attach to?) another proces, for detailed information, see https://docs.python.org/...". For Unix users, that would directly translate to - try it with sudo and that's not too bad.

Alright let's out this in the docs somewhere thst makes sense and lets link to that from the error message. Would that work for you?

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Yes, that works for me.

Add OS-specific permission requirements under the remote debugging
attachment protocol section. Include guidance for Linux, macOS, and
Windows to help users resolve common permission-related issues when
attaching to processes.
Add help text and display a URL in permission-related errors when
using the -p option in pdb to assist users in resolving common
issues during remote debugging.
Print a URL with steps to resolve permission errors when inspecting
processes using asyncio.tools.
@ivonastojanovic ivonastojanovic force-pushed the permission_error_message branch from 6101e33 to 6e53e81 Compare May 29, 2025 18:13
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