Re: removing "su" from coreutils [Re: Fwd: [PULL] su

[Thomas Schwinge]

Hi!

On Tue, 29 May 2012 11:50:25 +0200, I wrote:
> On Fri, 25 May 2012 11:26:00 +0200, I wrote:
> > On Thu, 24 May 2012 15:21:01 +0200, Jim Meyering <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > Pádraig Brady wrote:
> > > > -------- Original Message --------
> > > > Subject: [PULL] su
> > > > Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 14:58:01 +0200
> > > > From: Ludwig Nussel <address@hidden>
> > > > To: address@hidden
> > > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > coreutils isn't really interested in maintaining su anymore.
> > > > Distributions have to add custom patches to fix bugs and add
> > > > features. The worst offender is probably the pam patch. Fortunately
> > > > we managed to sync the patch between openSUSE and Fedora meanwhile.
> > > > Over time the risk that the patches divert again increases though.
> > > > Since util-linux now contains a common login program it looks like a
> > > > good new home for su too.
> > > >
> > > > To integrate su into util-linux I've extracted the history of the su
> > > > program until the last GPLv2 version (they've changed to GPLv3
> > > > meanwhile) from coreutils' git and merged it with util-linux.
> > > > Then I've added the patches used in Fedora and openSUSE and fixed the
> > > > files to actually build.
> > > >
> > > > You can find the result in branch su-v1 (ff6b15d) at
> > > > address@hidden:lnussel/util-linux.git
> > > >
> > > > I've also filed a pull request on github:
> > > > https://github.com/karelzak/util-linux/pull/10
> > > >
> > > > Originally I had planned to implement separate tty allocation for
> > > > the child program on top of that to get rid of the evil setsid
> > > > patch. It turned out to be more complicated than I thought though. The
> > > > change would be too massive to backport anyways I guess. So the next
> > > > step would be to rip out the non-pam legacy stuff and clean up the code
> > > > to make it readable again.
> > 
> > > I would like to remove su.c, if/when possible from coreutils.
> > > The last time I proposed that, the Hurd was mentioned as a
> > > reason not to, since they relied on the su from coreutils.
> > > 
> > > Is that still the case, and if so, can you (the Hurd) switch
> > > to the one from util-linux?
> > 
> > Yes, that appears to be fine -- despite its name, we're using a lot of
> > executables provided by util-linux.
> > 
> > I'll test the branch in the lnussel repository and report back.
> 
> A minor portability patch was all that was needed,
> <http://news.gmane.org/address@hidden>,
> and all that has now been merged to util-linux.
> 
> 
> How to coordinate this with Debian?  Chances are that an updated
> coreutils release with su removed is made before an util-linux release
> with su added.

On the other hand -- why doesn't Debian GNU/Hurd use the same su as
Debian GNU/Linux uses?


Grüße,
 Thomas

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