[7405] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Remove "Nickname" field in GECOS?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan Reed)
Sat Mar 12 02:17:53 2011
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From: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>
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Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 02:17:46 -0500
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To: "release-team@mit.edu Team" <release-team@mit.edu>
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Hi Garry,
Thanks for the quick turnaround. Let's coordinate next week, because I want to have a Hermes article in place, notify the consultants, and also pull Athena finger from the release. I also want to notify the Helpdesk and send mail to cfyi in the off chance that any popular-but-not-IS&T-supported webservices break.
-Jon
On Mar 12, 2011, at 1:12 AM, Garry P Zacheiss wrote:
> Sure, I have a patch to do this ready to go now. Do I need to do any coordination with you, or can I just deploy it?
>
> Garry
>
> On Mar 11, 2011, at 3:59 PM, Jonathan Reed wrote:
>
>> Hi Garry,
>>
>> We'd like to kill off Athena finger (because its non-standard format
>> screws up some OS-native utilities, like ACPI). One of the few reasons we
>> still have Athena finger is that our GECOS field is non-standard,
>> containing the extra "Nickname" field. Can we punt this from the Hesiod
>> DCM? We discussed it at release-team today, and we believe that it will
>> have a minimal risk, because:
>> - most people using parsing GECOS by hand are only interested in the full
>> name, and the position of that won't change
>> - the primary purpose of Athena finger (to be Hesiod aware) is moot in the
>> modern world
>> - If you want someone's correct contact info, you want MITDIR, not finger.
>> If you're amenable, we could do this now, or wait until this summer and
>> advertise the change as part of the Natty upgrade.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> -Jon
>
