Logger emits several UnicodeEncodeError messages when leapp upgrade is started using C locale

[sloanebernstein]

Actual behavior

When leapp upgrade is run with various locale-related environment variables set to C, even though the sub-command overrides them with en_US.UTF-8, Python internals are still configured to use the ascii encoding, and certain external commands emit UTF-8, which causes the logging subsystem to emit several UnicodeEncodeError exceptions.

To Reproduce

1. On a fresh AlmaLInux 8.10 installation, the appropriate ELevate repository RPM is installed, and packages to perform an AL8-to-AL9 upgrade are installed.

# rpm -ivh https://repo.almalinux.org/elevate/elevate-release-latest-el8.noarch.rpm
# dnf install leapp leapp-data-almalinux leapp-upgrade-el8toel9

2. The environment of the shell session is modified to force the use of the standard C locale:

# export LANG=C LANGUAGE=C LC_ALL=C LC_MESSAGES=C LC_CTYPE=C

3. leapp preupgrade is run and comes back with no inhibitors.
4. leapp upgrade is run. The following stack trace is the first of many which occur during initramfs generation, usually due to systemctl emitting fancy Unicode symbols when running in the context of DNF plugin handling:

==> Processing phase `InterimPreparation`
====> * common_leapp_dracut_modules
        Influences the generation of the initram disk
====> * efi_interim_fix
        Adjust EFI boot entry for first reboot
====> * add_arm_bootloader_workaround
        Workaround for ARM Upgrades from RHEL8 to RHEL9.5 onwards
====> * remove_upgrade_artifacts
        Removes artifacts left over by previous leapp runs
====> * upgrade_initramfs_generator
        Creates the upgrade initramfs
--- Logging error ---
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/logging/__init__.py", line 996, in emit
    stream.write(msg)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character '\u2192' in position 183: ordinal not in range(128)
Call stack:
  File "/bin/leapp", line 11, in <module>
    load_entry_point('leapp==0.18.0', 'console_scripts', 'leapp')()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/cli/__init__.py", line 51, in main
    cli.command.execute('leapp version {}'.format(VERSION))
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/utils/clicmd.py", line 111, in execute
    args.func(args)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/utils/clicmd.py", line 133, in called
    self.target(args)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/cli/commands/upgrade/breadcrumbs.py", line 166, in wrapper
    return f(*args, breadcrumbs=breadcrumbs, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/cli/commands/upgrade/__init__.py", line 110, in upgrade
    only_with_tags=only_with_tags)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/workflows/__init__.py", line 351, in run
    instance.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/repository/actor_definition.py", line 112, in run
    p.start()
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/multiprocessing/process.py", line 105, in start
    self._popen = self._Popen(self)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/multiprocessing/context.py", line 223, in _Popen
    return _default_context.get_context().Process._Popen(process_obj)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/multiprocessing/context.py", line 277, in _Popen
    return Popen(process_obj)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/multiprocessing/popen_fork.py", line 19, in __init__
    self._launch(process_obj)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/multiprocessing/popen_fork.py", line 73, in _launch
    code = process_obj._bootstrap()
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/multiprocessing/process.py", line 258, in _bootstrap
    self.run()
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/multiprocessing/process.py", line 93, in run
    self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/repository/actor_definition.py", line 75, in _do_run
    actor_instance.run(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/actors/__init__.py", line 316, in run
    self.process(*args)
  File "/etc/leapp/repos.d/system_upgrade/common/actors/initramfs/upgradeinitramfsgenerator/actor.py", line 46, in process
    upgradeinitramfsgenerator.process()
  File "/etc/leapp/repos.d/system_upgrade/common/actors/initramfs/upgradeinitramfsgenerator/libraries/upgradeinitramfsgenerator.py", line 539, in process
    prepare_userspace_for_initram(context)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/utils/deprecation.py", line 42, in process_wrapper
    return target_item(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/etc/leapp/repos.d/system_upgrade/common/actors/initramfs/upgradeinitramfsgenerator/libraries/upgradeinitramfsgenerator.py", line 245, in prepare_userspace_for_initram
    _install_initram_deps(packages)
  File "/etc/leapp/repos.d/system_upgrade/common/actors/initramfs/upgradeinitramfsgenerator/libraries/upgradeinitramfsgenerator.py", line 176, in _install_initram_deps
    used_repos=used_repos)
  File "/etc/leapp/repos.d/system_upgrade/common/libraries/dnfplugin.py", line 386, in install_initramdisk_requirements
    context.call(cmd, env=env)
  File "/etc/leapp/repos.d/system_upgrade/common/libraries/mounting.py", line 169, in call
    return run(self.type.make_command(cmd), *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/libraries/stdlib/__init__.py", line 185, in run
    stdin=stdin, env=env, encoding=encoding)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/libraries/stdlib/call.py", line 199, in _call
    **extra
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/libraries/stdlib/call.py", line 73, in _multiplex
    callback_linebuffered((fd, fd_type), pre)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/leapp/libraries/stdlib/__init__.py", line 146, in _logfile_logging_handler
    api.current_logger().debug(line)
Message: 'Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/sysinit.target.wants/multipathd.service \u2192 /usr/lib/systemd/system/multipathd.service.'
Arguments: ()

Expected behavior

If Leapp is to override the locale passed at start to the Python interpreter and it, it should perform this task completely. Evidently, overriding the environment variables alone is not enough for Python.

System information (please complete the following information):

• OS and version: AlmaLinux 8.10
• # uname -a: Linux aaaaaa.openstack.build 4.18.0-553.16.1.el8_10.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Aug 8 07:11:46 EDT 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
• # rpm -qa "*leapp*" (or shorthashes of commits in case of manual installation):

# rpm -qa leapp*
leapp-data-almalinux-0.5-1.el8.20241127.noarch
leapp-deps-0.18.0-2.el8.noarch
leapp-0.18.0-2.el8.noarch
leapp-upgrade-el8toel9-0.21.0-4.el8.elevate.4.noarch
leapp-upgrade-el8toel9-deps-0.21.0-4.el8.elevate.4.noarch

---

Additional context

I'm reasonably sure that you inherited this bug from upstream, but I though that I should file here first.