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Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 20:36:59 +0100
From: m0viefreak <m0viefreak DOT cm AT googlemail DOT com>
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To: Cygwin Mailing List <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: Re: Testers needed: New passwd/group handling in Cygwin
In-Reply-To: <20140213143849.GH2246@calimero.vinschen.de>
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Hello,

I have a a question about how this change is going to affect
third-party utilities. Especially in the case once chooses to
use the PAM method and get rid of any /etc/{passwd,group}
files completely.

There seem to be programs (mostly scripts) that make use of
/etc/passwd as a file directly.

One of them is for example "ssh-host-config".

The shell script:

- works with the file directly:
  ...
  run_service_as=$(/usr/bin/grep -Fi "${accnt_name}" /etc/passwd | /usr/bin/awk -F: '{print $1;}') 
  ...

  I assume this would have to be changed in the sshd package?

- After the script is run it sets various entries in the
  /etc/passwd file (sshd shell to /bin/false and home to /var/empty).
  I assume I would have to migrate these changes into the <cygwin />
  comment if I were to remove the passwd file now.
  But more importantly, if I were to run sshd-host-config with
  no passwd file present at all, would it correctly set up the
  <cygwin /> comment entry in the PAM?

Grepping through /bin I found at least one other package
that makes use of /etc/passwd as a file directly (cvsbug), but 
since I don't have everything installed I can only assume there
are more cygwin-packages and other programs someone might build
from source.


An idea that might sound a bit far-fetched: In case the above
is actually a problem, would it be possible to populate a virtual
/etc/passwd file on-the-fly the same way /dev/ and /proc/ are?
This way programs that rely on reading the passwd file direclty
would just keep working (writing would be more complicated
of course).


--
m0vie

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