Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 09:59:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Paul Herman <pherman@frenchfries.net> To: "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@over-yonder.net> Cc: "Geoffrey C. Speicher" <geoff@sea-incorporated.com>, <freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: bug in pw, -STABLE [patch] Message-ID: <20020623094323.F38369-100000@mammoth.eat.frenchfries.net> In-Reply-To: <20020623160439.GE81018@over-yonder.net>
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[ pulled over to -hackers as well ]
On Sun, 23 Jun 2002, Matthew D. Fuller wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 23, 2002 at 09:00:52AM -0700 I heard the voice of
> Paul Herman, and lo! it spake thus:
> > On Sun, 23 Jun 2002, Geoffrey C. Speicher wrote:
> >
> > How so? I'm not suggesting unlink(2)ing /etc/master.passwd or
> > /etc/spwd.db at all.
>
> No, but pw(8) does; making it not do so would require reasonably
> extensive rewriting.
Indeed it does do this. However, that seems to be the crux of the
problem. The current pw(8) behavior was (probably) not only a
convenient way to update files in /etc, but an attempt to narrow
(not eliminate) the window for race conditions. If this is
fundamentaly flawed, *this* should be fixed, and not have a larger
band aid put over it.
I can't imagine it would be too extensive of a rewrite. The temp
file code could be kept, and in fileupd.c:fileupdate() instead of
rename("/etc/master.passwd.new", "/etc/master.passwd"), it just
copies the contents of the .new file into the original file (that
has the O_EXLOCK.)
-Paul.
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