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bug#10317: PING - bug#10317: patch to su: -l and -p should not be used t
From: |
Jim Meyering |
Subject: |
bug#10317: PING - bug#10317: patch to su: -l and -p should not be used together |
Date: |
Fri, 04 May 2012 14:19:25 +0200 |
Rocky Bernstein wrote:
> On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 4:49 AM, Jim Meyering <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> Rocky Bernstein wrote:
> > Any word on this?
>
> Hi Rocky,
>
> Sorry about the extended delay.
> Changing su.c like this has really low priority.
>
> I've looked at your patch and see that it changes the semantics
> of su for those who use -l with (-m or -p).
>
> Before your patch, -l would lead to simulate_login being set even
> when -l was specified after an -m-or-p option.
> Now, using e.g., "-l -m" evokes a warning but the -l is otherwise ignored.
>
> Did you intend that?
>
> I never had a strong feeling on it to the extent that ambiguous behavior
> should
> be preserved. However much more important is issuing a warning says what's
> done
> whatever it is and currently, that is not done. I am sensing (but am not
> completely sure that) the preferred behavior is to keep compatible behavior
> whatever the current behavior is?
That is what I expected, and would certainly require less justification.
If you have a good case for making the semantic change, I'm open to
that, too.
> May as well get this cleared up before another
> 1/3 of a year goes by.
>
> Normally such a change would be mentioned in a ChangeLog entry or commit
> log.
>
> I tried to use the su from coreutils (with or without your patch)
> and found that it does not work when it attempts to authenticate.
> E.g., it cannot su to any user on this Fedora 17 system. If su
> remains so broken that it does not work out-of-the-box on F17,
> then it's not worth patching. Remember that I wanted to remove su
> from coreutils altogether, and only reluctantly agreed to consider
> this change. If someone who cares about su remaining in coreutils
> wants to take responsibility for making it usable, that'd be great.
> It may be as simple as importing a patch or two from Fedora or Suse.
>
> If you'd like to pursue your change once su is restored to working
> order, please justify or revert the semantic change in your patch,
>
> Actually, at this point I am loosing interest. You have created a somewhat
> unfriendly environment here to work in.
Please don't interpret my review delays or my misreading your
patch as anything deliberately unfriendly. I've been trying to keep
this list as open/accommodating as possible for nearly two decades.
I agree that the long delay is off-putting and apologized for that, twice.
> I suggest, but leave up to you, whether
> to just document the behavior as it is leaving the code exactly as it is.
>
> starting from the change-set below, which includes the following changes:
>
> - remove some space-before-TAB in tests/Makefile.am
> - remove space-before-semicolon in su.c
> - split two longer-than-80-col lines
> - remove both \n and trailing "." from two new diagnostics
> - adjust NEWS
>
> Again, if you or anyone reading this can't be bothered to do this, I will also
> put this on my "low priority" list. You have in mind what you want to see and
> I've been getting this information in drips and drabs which is annoying.
If you had read the contribution guidelines in HACKING, you would have
known to run "make syntax-check", which would highlighted three of the
five issues listed above.
> It's now about 5 months since I sent this and only now have you even attempted
> to try the patch. (The last correspondence you incorrectly made a denigrating
> assumption which just added gratuitous delay.) Most of the stylistic things
> mentioned here could have been mentioned a couple of months ago.
bug#10317: PING - bug#10317: patch to su: -l and -p should not be used together, Jim Meyering, 2012/05/04