Subject: Re: gen usr AS root with YP
To: None <tech-userlevel@NetBSD.ORG>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Holo.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 11/25/1996 11:16:34
[quotes from two different people here.]

> I believe the problem is related to the fact that this feature should
> not be enabled for UID 0.  SunOS certainly ignores UID 0.

I was not aware SunOS ignored non-0 uid/gid overrides.  I had thought
it simply ignored those fields - I consider it a nasty bug that it
doesn't let you override to root.  (I used to think it was just a nasty
bug that it didn't let you override them. :-)

> [...] I'll add a warning to pwd_mkdb to emit a warning to stderr if
> an inclusion with uid 0 or gid 0 is encountered.

While this is good in that (a) it alerts people who have fallen into
bad habits based on the SunOS bug and (b) doesn't stop people who
really do want to do this, it would be nice of the (b) people could
suppress the warning.  How about doing it only if the overriding ID is
the single-character string "0"?  Deliberate ID-0 overrides could be
written 00 then.  It would mean a little more code in pwd_mkdb, to go
back and find the text form of the ID field in the case where a warning
is currently printed; IMO it's worth it.

I'll even volunteer to do the work. :-)

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
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