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

[Thomas Schwinge]

Hi!

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/find-root.php?message_id=%address@hidden%3E>,
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.


Grüße,
 Thomas

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