[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#276419: transition anouncement proposal

Sat Jan 28 22:31:39 UTC 2006

Hello,

Here is a proposal for the transition announcement.

We need to find if the transitionned login must conflict with all the
packages which are not following the new synopsis.
(There was a discussion about it on debian-devel, but IIRC no strong
point)

I will make a patch to enable swicthing to the old behavior with an
environment variable (SU_NO_SHELL_ARGS).

==========================================================================

Introduction
============
As reported in #276419, shadow's su [1] doesn't permit to specify options
to the invoked shell and doesn't respect quoted arguments.
We plan to revert this behavior and follow su's documentation and other
implementations.

Short details
=============
Packages passing a command in argument to su must use su's -c option
and must quote the command if it contains a space.
For example:
  su - root -c "ls -l /"

The following commands won't work anymore:
  su - root -c ls -l /
  su - root "ls -l /"
  su - root ls -l /

There will be no problems for backports. -c can be used and arguments
quoted, with the past and future versions.

Needed adaptations
==================
We tried to find the packages that will be affected by this transition.
We did not audit the full archive, but focused on [2]:
 * maintainer scripts
 * packages with an init.d script (based on a sid Contents-i386)
 * packages with an cron script (based on a sid Contents-i386)
 * native packages (on sid i386)
(In general, archives embedded in source packages were not chacked)

Package needing changes
-----------------------
amavisd-new-2.3.3/debian/amavisd-new.cron.daily
backupninja-0.9.2/handlers/pgsql
backupninja-0.9.2/handlers/mysql
backupninja-0.9.2/examples/example.rdiff
echolot-2.1.8/debian/echolot.init
gnunet-0.7.0b/contrib/init_gnunet_ubuntu
yiff-2.14.2/build_and_install
python-4suite-0.99cvs20051115/debian/python-4suite-server.init.d
samhain-2.0.10a/init/samhain.start.in

To be checked
-------------
debget-1.5/debget

maybe
-----
cedar-backup2-2.7.2/CedarBackup2/peer.py (depends on executeCommand)
nut-2.0.2/scripts/HP-UX/nut-drvctl.sh (maybe not used on Debian)
usermin-1.160/cron/config-aix (maybe not used on Debian)
courier-0.52.1/courier.lpspec(.in)? (maybe not used on Debian)
courier-0.52.1/courier.spec(.in)? (maybe not used on Debian)
murasaki-0.8.11/scripts/printer (su $USER -c $CMD, $CMD may have a space)
nut-2.0.2/scripts/HP-UX/nut-drvctl.sh (maybe not used on Debian)
nut-2.0.2/scripts/HP-UX/nut-upsd.sh (maybe not used on Debian)
usermin-1.160/web-lib-funcs.pl
usermin-1.160/shell/index.cgi
usermin-1.160/fetchmail/check.pl
usermin-1.160/commands/run.cgi
usermin-1.160/postgresql/postgresql-lib.pl
webmin-1.230/web-lib-funcs.pl
webmin-1.230/cron/config-aix
webmin-1.230/custom/run.cgi

In comments or documentation
----------------------------
cyrus21-imapd-2.1.18/debian/cyrus21-common.postinst
lprng-3.8.28/DOCS/LPRng-Reference.html
lprng-3.8.28/DOCS/LPRng-Reference.sgml
lprng-3.8.28/DOCS/LPRng-Reference-Multipart/x9198.htm
remstats-1.0.13a/INSTALL
remstats-1.0.13a/docs/book.tex (and other formats)
remstats-1.0.13a/docs/install-user.pod
remstats-1.0.13a/docs/install.pod
remstats-1.0.13a/docs/install.txt
bricolage-1.8.8/bin/bric_ftpd
dhis-client-5.3/README
kdenetwork-3.5.0/kopete/protocols/meanwhile/README
pop-before-smtp-1.36/contrib/README.rootless-install
sqlrelay-0.36.4/doc/gettingstarted/interbase.html
debpool-0.2.2/debian/README.User

Transition plan
===============
Date?

environment variable to restore the previous behavior

conflict with the above packages?

Other recommandation
====================
You should follow the following synopsis for your su commands.
(This will give you more chance to be portable and to work on
POSIXLY_CORRECT environments)

    su [options] [-] [username [args]]

[args] are arguments passed to the shell

Specifically:
 * It is preferable to provide -c in [args] rather than in [options].
 * su - root -p doesn't work on if the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment
   variable is set.

axyl-2.1.9/db/postgres/install-db.sh
dwww-1.9.26/dwww-format-man
findutils-4.2.26/locate/updatedb.sh
interchange-5.3.2/debian/interchange.cron.daily
interchange-5.3.2/scripts/restart.PL
popularity-contest-1.31/debian/cron.weekly
popularity-contest-1.31/FAQ
powersave-0.9.25/scripts/wm_shutdown
powersave-0.9.25/scripts/do_screen_saver
powersave-0.9.25/scripts/wm_logout
powersave-0.9.25/scripts/x_helper_functions
usermin-1.160/web-lib-funcs.pl
usermin-1.160/commands/run.cgi
webmin: ditto

[1] The su used on Debian, unless for The Hurd (which uses coreutils's su).

[2] The rational is that we consider there is a greater chance to find
    problems on debian specific packages/scripts since it would have fail
    on other OS (on RedHat, Gentoo, Mandriva, SunOS).
    Probably 10% of the archive was audited.

[3] Thanks to Bill Allombert 
    http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/11/msg01215.html

==========================================================================

We can make it smaller by removing the "Other recommandation" and
"In comments or documentation" sections.

The "To be checked" and "maybe" sections need to be checked (or maybe we
can keep them like that and let the maintainers check).

Kind Regards,
-- 
Nekral