[7316] in Athena Bugs
Re: Strange behavior when logging in
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Thu Mar 14 23:20:33 1991
To: Richard Basch <basch@MIT.EDU>
Cc: bugs@MIT.EDU, amgreene@MIT.EDU, lnp@MIT.EDU, athena-ws@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 13 Mar 91 11:14:00 -0500.
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 91 23:19:43 EST
From: John Carr <jfc@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Since we provide both login and xlogin, the problem is not that difficult to
solve. Sample solution:
reactivate:
create /etc/nologin-tmp
flock /etc/nologin-tmp (to prevent problems if the process dies)
modify /etc/passwd and/or /tmp
remove /etc/nologin-tmp
login:
if /etc/nologin-tmp exists then done (login OK)
if flock /etc/nologin-tmp fails then sleep 1 sec and repeat
remove /etc/nologin-tmp
This would also solve a problem on the dialup servers: cleanup creates
/etc/nologin, but what it really wants to do is delay logins until it is
done.
There is no problem if a machine is running a login that we didn't write,
because it is unlikely to be modifying /etc/passwd or creating kerberos
tickets.
