Profile include support
ghudson@MIT.EDU
ghudson at MIT.EDU
Mon Aug 23 11:03:58 EDT 2010
We previously decided to add include-file support to the profile
library (see
http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/krbdev/2010-July/009170.html). I've
done a project writeup a working proof-of-concept implementation
(currently private; I'll just check it into the trunk when I'm done).
The project writeup is at:
http://k5wiki.kerberos.org/wiki/Projects/Profile_Includes
This project is under review until Friday of this week (2010-08-27).
For convenience of review, here is the contents of the "Open Issues"
section:
* glob() may not exist on all systems. Does it exist on Windows? If it
does not exist, what fallback position should the code take? Options
are:
- Fail to compile if glob() does not exist.
- Disable include support if glob() does not exist.
- Allow only includes of explicit filenames if glob() does not
exist.
- Provide a glob() implementation if it does not exist. This may be
a substantial amount of code.
* The syntax "include PATTERN" is simple and clear, but may not be
optimal. It could break existing profile files which contain an
"initial comment" (any text before the first line beginning with
'[') with a line which happens to begin with "include". Also, adding
an include directive anywhere other than the beginning of a
krb5.conf file would cause earlier versions of krb5 to generate a
syntax error. Other syntax options include:
- Masquerade as a comment: #include PATTERN
- Masquerade as a section: [include PATTERN]
- Distinctive punctuation: @include PATTERN
* Nothing in the design prevents include directives containing
relative paths or patterns. Such an include directive would have
unpredictable effects since the current working directory would be
different for different invocations of the krb5 library. Should the
profile library protect the administrator by restricting include
directives to absolute paths? If so, how should it portably
recognize an absolute path?
* Should an include directive ever result in a fatal error? Possible
error cases include:
- Including an explicit filename (not a pattern) which does not
exist.
- Including a pattern which has no matches. Note that it is
impossible to distinguish this case from the previous one without
breaking the abstraction barrier of glob().
- Including a pattern or filename which attempts to descend into
directories which the process has no permission to read.
- Including a pattern or filename which matches a file, but the file
cannot be opened.
Note that because of the profile library architecture, it cannot
generate extended errors.
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