Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Jeremy Blosser <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>]

On Feb 01, Benoit PAPILLAULT [benoit.papillault AT sourcemage.org] wrote:
> Andrew reported that "0.9.3 installer doesnt install /etc/shells" (See 
> http://bugs.sourcemage.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8160, 0.9.3). Apparently, 
> none of the ISO installer did so for quite a long time.
> 
> According to the shells(5) and getusershell(3) man page, this file 
> records the full pathname of valid login shells. It is used for security 
> purpose (for instance in kdm).
> 
> Since we are several people working in the ISO Team right now, and thus, 
> it's not related only to the 0.9.3 release, I'd like to have some input 
> on this file, at least from our security guru!
> 
> I think this file should be updated by each shell spell (bash, tcsh, 
> zsh, pdksh, ...) in some post-installation scripts.
> 
> Inputs, comments are welcome.

The normal usage of this is that the admin populates /etc/shells with the
list of shells they want users to be able to set as their login shell via
chsh(1).  There are occassions where you would install a shell on the
system, but not want users to be able to use it via chsh.  (Just like there
are cases where you want to install daemon on the system but not actually
enable it in telinit.)

So I would suggest each shell should prompt for this, e.g. "Add /bin/foo to
/etc/shells?".  I'm not sure if this should default to y or n, but y is
probably appropriate.

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