[1896] in SIPB_Linux_Development
Re: /usr/sbin/lastlog
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Salvatore Valente)
Thu Nov 13 16:37:58 1997
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 17:26:56 -0500
To: katyking@MIT.EDU
Cc: linux-dev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <199711120601.BAA06284@cutter-john.mit.edu> (message from Katy King on Wed, 12 Nov 1997 01:01:00 EST)
From: Salvatore Valente <svalente@MIT.EDU>
Hi. You wrote:
Redhat Linux comes with a program called lastlog in /usr/sbin.
Would it be possible to call this Redhat program something else
in the next release of Linux-Athena so there is no namespace
conflict?
I'm a little concerned that this would set a bad precedent. There are
about a million lockers out there, and I don't want to give the
impression that linux-dev cares about avoiding namespace collisions
with most of them. Still, the consult locker is among the most
popular lockers, so it should be ok.
An alternative solution is to remove the "shadow-utils" package from
the default list of packages installed. Converting to a shadow
password file would probably break a few Athena programs anyway...
Linux-dev people: Has anyone ever run /usr/sbin/pwconv5 on an Athena
system? Did it break anything? Should we try to support it?
Any objections to removing shadow-utils from the default package list?
Here's an other alternative. The RedHat "lastlog" and the consult
locker "lastlog" attempt to do basically the same thing, although they
do it in radically different ways. (They both attempt to tell you the
last time a user logged in.) The RedHat version is concerned only
with the local machine, and the consult locker version is concerned
with the Athena environment. So, the relationship between
/usr/sbin/lastlog and mit/consult/bin/lastlog is the same as that
between /usr/bin/passwd and /usr/athena/bin/passwd. Also,
/usr/bin/from and /usr/athena/bin/from. And telnet, chfn, chsh, etc.
So, perhaps linux-dev should provide a /usr/athena/bin/lastlog, just
like we do for most other /usr/{s}bin programs that don't work in the
Athena environment?
Have a nice day.
-Sal.
