Many macOS popups asking for incoming connections appear when running test suite for the first time

[marsonya]

I saw 10s of popups in MacOS asking "Do you want the application node to accept incoming network connections?" when I ran the test suite. They just keep coming, 1 every 5-10 seconds. The only way to stop is force close vscode. Happened when I ran ./configure && make -j4 test.

• Operating Sustem: MacOS
• Version: Big Sur 11.0.1

What steps will reproduce the bug?

• Cloned my Fork
• Made a few changes to tests (var to let/const)
• Ran the Test Suite ./configure && make -j4 test

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

This happened twice.
First time, I did not allow. Simply force closed vscode.
I wanted to try again to get a screenshot this time.
So I ran the test suite a second time, got the screenshot and allowed the application to get incoming calls.

What is the expected behavior?

One popup must be enough.

What do you see instead?

I see 10s of popups. They keep increasing. 1 every 5-10 seconds.

Additional information

The only way to make it stop is to force close vscode. The popups just keep coming.

[cjihrig]

If you run tools/macos-firewall.sh before the test suite it should help.

[Trott]

This depends on your firewall settings. It doesn't seem to happen on a default macOS setup, but tends to happen if you have a managed macOS machine or if the firewall settings are otherwise adjusted to be sufficiently strict.

I don't think there's much to do about this other than perhaps document the existence of tools/macos-firewall.sh a bit more prominently than it's currently documented?

I'm going to close this but feel free to comment or re-open if you think there's more to discuss and/or more to do here.

[marsonya]

I realise that tools/macos-firewall.sh will solve this issue and I do have custom firewall config on my system.
But my intention of creating this issue was to bring the infinite popups to your notice.
In my opinion, even if I have not run the tools/macos-firewall.sh, I should see only one popup.

[Trott]

In my opinion, even if I have not run the tools/macos-firewall.sh, I should see only one popup.

I'm not sure how we'd achieve that unless we run all the tests that require network access with a single invocation of node.

[marsonya]

I followed the BUILDING.md file along with the feedback in this discussion.

I built node.js using make. It was successful, or at least I think so. This is how my build ended in terminal:-

After that, I executed tools/macos-firewall.sh but this is what happens:-

Regardless, I ran the tests. The popups showed. All of em.

Am I missing something?

More Information:-
OS: macOS Big Sur

[Trott]

The output you show is expected. (I know it looks like a bunch of errors and brokenness, but I think what the script does is try everything possible, and only one or two of those are supposed to succeed.)

I think the docs may incorrectly be specifying to run the script with sudo. I run it without sudo and it works. Any chance running it without sudo works for you?

[Trott]

@danbev

[marsonya]

The output you show is expected. (I know it looks like a bunch of errors and brokenness, but I think what the script does is try everything possible, and only one or two of those are supposed to succeed.)

I think the docs may incorrectly be specifying to run the script with sudo. I run it without sudo and it works. Any chance running it without sudo works for you?

It works without sudo for me. Getting the same output I shared above.

[danbev]

Perhaps there is some change required for macOS Big Sur though for this script to work with it. Unfortunately I'm no longer using a mac and don't really have a good way to test/fix this 😞

[Trott]

It works without sudo for me. Getting the same output I shared above.

When you say it works without sudo, does that mean that running it without sudo means you no longer get all those dialogue boxes when running tests? If so, then the fix here I guess is to update the documentation. I'm not sure if the answer is to remove sudo or to suggest that it may require omitting sudo. (Like I said, I never run it with sudo.)

As for the output, it has always been that way, so I'm not too concerned about that (although if someone wants to fix it without affecting the script working across various macOS versions, then great).

[marsonya]

It works without sudo for me. Getting the same output I shared above.

When you say is works without sudo, does that mean that running it without sudo means you no longer get all those dialogue boxes when running tests? If so, then the fix here I guess is to update the documentation. I'm not sure if the answer is to remove sudo or to suggest that it may require omitting sudo. (Like I said, I never run it with sudo.)

As for the output, it has always been that way, so I'm not too concerned about that (although if someone wants to fix it without affecting the script working across various macOS versions, then great).

Unfortunately, running the script with or without sudo did not help. I am still seeing the popups.
On a side note, the tests are running without any problems as the popups keep coming.