On 27-Jan-01 Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Jan 2001 14:13:42 -0800 (PST)
> John Baldwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> JB> 1) All parsing of /etc/shells should move off into libutil under a
> JB> suitable API.
>
> There is one in libc/gen that would do fine. The catch is that it
> is not used everywhere and some of the code that fails to use it is in
> contrib
> and I am not too sure of the wisdom of changing it.
Hmmm.. How many places use it? sendmail is probably one. If you get a
workable API implemented, we might be able to convince contrib'd apps to use
it, which would be one way of fixing this problem. If you can do that, then
you might be able to work with the maintainer(s) to commit the changes before
the next release of the vendor code comes out on the vendor branch.
> JB> 2) The implementation of this API should allow for multiple files that it
> JB> checks. One way might be to add a '.include' keyword or something so
> JB> that /etc/shells could have '.include /usr/local/etc/shells' that the
> JB> admin could adjust should he/she choose to change ${LOCALBASE} to
> JB> something other than /usr/local.
>
> I did consider an include mechanism and making _PATH_SHELLS a path list.
> I was leaning in the direction of an include mechanism when the (bad) idea of
> changing _PATH_SHELLS to point to /usr/local which removed any need to patch
> roken, adduser.pl and sendmail.
You don't want to statically code a path into _PATH_SHELLS, cause then an admin
has to recompile everything if they change LOCALBASE, which would suck. :)
> JB> This is more work than your patch, but this patch doesn't really solve
> JB> the problem, it merely moves it. It also breaks for ${LOCALBASE}
> JB> != /usr/local, so I don't think it should go in.
>
> Good points, agreed.
>
> Thoughts please on the wisdom of patching the above areas to handle
> an include syntax, my worry is maintenance since most of it is contib. I
> don't
> know if I would be introducing the first changes to them (in which cas I will
> not) or just one of many (in which case I'll start coding). ?
How many contrib'd apps need to look at /etc/shells? The biggest one I think
is sendmail, and Greg Shapiro is a very reasonable fellow, and can probably
assist in getting sendmail at least to use the API as long as it isn't too
inconvenient.
--
John Baldwin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
PGP Key: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/pgpkey.asc
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/
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