Hello,
I have a a question about how this change is going to affect
third-party utilities. Especially in the case once chooses to
use the PAM method and get rid of any /etc/{passwd,group}
files completely.
There seem to be programs (mostly scripts) that make use of
/etc/passwd as a file directly.
One of them is for example "ssh-host-config".
The shell script:
- works with the file directly:
...
run_service_as=$(/usr/bin/grep -Fi "${accnt_name}" /etc/passwd | /usr/bin/awk
-F: '{print $1;}')
...
I assume this would have to be changed in the sshd package?
- After the script is run it sets various entries in the
/etc/passwd file (sshd shell to /bin/false and home to /var/empty).
I assume I would have to migrate these changes into the <cygwin />
comment if I were to remove the passwd file now.
But more importantly, if I were to run sshd-host-config with
no passwd file present at all, would it correctly set up the
<cygwin /> comment entry in the PAM?
Grepping through /bin I found at least one other package
that makes use of /etc/passwd as a file directly (cvsbug), but
since I don't have everything installed I can only assume there
are more cygwin-packages and other programs someone might build
from source.
An idea that might sound a bit far-fetched: In case the above
is actually a problem, would it be possible to populate a virtual
/etc/passwd file on-the-fly the same way /dev/ and /proc/ are?
This way programs that rely on reading the passwd file direclty
would just keep working (writing would be more complicated
of course).
--
m0vie
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