From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.org/gmane.linux.lib.musl.general/1562 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Rich Felker Newsgroups: gmane.linux.lib.musl.general Subject: Re: Design for extensible passwd[/shadow?] db support Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 09:50:48 -0400 Message-ID: <20120813135048.GX27715@brightrain.aerifal.cx> References: <20120812053802.GA10971@brightrain.aerifal.cx> <20120812205643.GT27715@brightrain.aerifal.cx> Reply-To: musl@lists.openwall.com NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1344865795 24683 80.91.229.3 (13 Aug 2012 13:49:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:49:55 +0000 (UTC) To: musl@lists.openwall.com Original-X-From: musl-return-1563-gllmg-musl=m.gmane.org@lists.openwall.com Mon Aug 13 15:49:54 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gllmg-musl@plane.gmane.org Original-Received: from mother.openwall.net ([195.42.179.200]) by plane.gmane.org with smtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1T0v1l-0005Dy-El for gllmg-musl@plane.gmane.org; Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:49:53 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 11879 invoked by uid 550); 13 Aug 2012 13:49:52 -0000 Mailing-List: contact musl-help@lists.openwall.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: Original-Received: (qmail 11871 invoked from network); 13 Aug 2012 13:49:52 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.linux.lib.musl.general:1562 Archived-At: On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 11:41:47AM +0200, Arvid E. Picciani wrote: > On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 16:56:43 -0400, Rich Felker wrote: > > >I don't follow. What alternative are your proposing? > > push user lookup up the stack and force ancient code to link in the > high level lib. "Intentionally break or omit a required standard interface in POSIX and require every application needing the functionality to pull in some third-party library" is not a plan that sounds appealing to me. > imo, getpwent and the link don't belong into libc. They're only Well that's up to the Austin Group, not you. We implement POSIX. Unlike glibc, which (used to) implement Drepper's idea of what POSIX should be changed to. Thankfully now that's changing. > there because ancient unix > systems had a lot of tools that shared that functionality and an > extra lib would seem > bloat for the little functionality they offered (basicly, it's a > shared /etc/passwd parser, > not a user lookup per se). Then glibc wanted more then that, out of > a real need, and crammed > it into libc as well, because of the inability to break compatibility. > Now, musl _can_ break compatibility with GNU/Linux. Especially if > it's just "link against another lib". > > Then you can go to full lengths and rebuild the whole idea of user > lookup, auth, etc. > Another grief i have with PAM is that it is orthogonal to libc. > > For a dynamic loaded system, if you design the interface carefully, > this means you can exchange > the auth/user/whatever lib with something else at the packaging level. > For a static linked system, it makes no difference at all. Making /bin/ls depend on dynamic loading modules is a bit disgusting... Rich