[3573] in Release_7.7_team
(Hopefully) final word on cert removal scripts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (t. belton)
Tue Oct 22 17:08:48 2002
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 17:03:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: "t. belton" <tbelton@MIT.EDU>
To: <web-agents@MIT.EDU>
cc: <cfyi@MIT.EDU>, <release-team@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <20020926234714.GA22408@coleco-sidewinder.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.33L.0210221647360.11706-100000@iphigenia.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Summary first, if you are a consultant or help-giver who just wants to
know what to tell people:
The script to delete Netscape certs is either 'zapnetscapecerts' or
'zap-netscape-certs' (I prefer the latter, you may have reasons for
preferring the former, both work).
The script to delete Mozilla certs is either 'zapmozillacerts' or
'zap-mozilla-certs'. Again, your choice; I prefer the hyphens.
Please start using these in stock answers, etc. I have every hope they
will be permanent.
The old names, clear-netscape-password, clearcerts, and zap-certificates,
all now echo a few brief lines telling the user to run one of the two
scripts above instead.
These changes will propagate in infoagents tomorrow.
Further details for the detail oriented:
The unpleasant "zap" was chosen over "clear" or "delete" because it does
not have a corresponding unix function of its own, so if the user
mistakenly types it as "zap mozilla certs," they won't have anything nasty
happen.
An output line has been added to the end of zap-mozilla-certs, saying that
it done did what it done did. This makes its behavior (from user
perspective) exactly the same as zap-netscape-certs. In reality the
former is a more complex script which has to search for a profile and also
remove three lines from the prefs, but the user doesn't need to know that.
If we want to add more feedback to either script we should add it to both,
but apparently that's never been needed in the past.
I made an error a while back: I said that 'clear-netscape-password' had
been removed. It hadn't. I had apparently Done The Right Thing way back
when, and the command would have worked (to remove Netscape certs) all
along. No doubt this is a great relief to those of you who were still
telling users to use that command! Now: please don't. I really don't like
the idea of anything referring to "removing a password" that actually does
something more destructive. This is why 'clear-netscape-password' now
points to the "You can't do that anymore, please use these names instead"
stub.
I think that should finally lay this gremlin to rest. As ever, if there
are problems, let me know.
Oh, yes. My certs document has been changed to reflect the correct new
script name.
- Todd
