Re: [dev] [PATCH] Check for presence of SHELL environment variable

From: Christoph Lohmann <20h_AT_r-36.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 19:18:32 +0100

On Thu, 06 Nov 2014 19:18:32 +0100 k0ga_AT_shike2.com wrote:
>
> >> HOME must hold the value of the user's home directory, if this
> >> value is not the value of /etc/passwd then you have an error
> >> in your configuration. The same can be said about SHELL. You
> >> can change your shell selection using chsh.
> >
> > I don't agree with your interpretation of the POSIX verbiage, but
> > regardless, in my experience, the vast majority of applications check
> > for $HOME before checking a user's passwd entry and the same applies
> > with shells. Going with the principal of least surprise, this patch
> > makes perfect sense. Even if you ignore that. I think SHELL could be a
> > considered a special case -- a user may not have control of their system
> > shell, and their only option for overriding it is updating SHELL after
> > logging in.
>
> The problem here is that POSIX doesn't say anything about terminal
> emulators, and they don't fit correctly in the system definition. The
> correct behaviour of a terminal emulator should be execute a login
> program, but it is painful to force the user to write the user/password
> all the times, so almost all terminal emulators duplicate the work
> of login, but without asking. This is the reason they dulicate some
> of the work of login. You can set the value of SHELL in your
> profile if you cannot modify the value of /etc/passwd, but it means
> you are going to execute two shells (the first from your /etc/passwd
> and the second from your .profile).
>
> I would like to listen the opinion of other suckless developers about
> this point. What do you think guys?
>
> Regards,
>
>
>

Sincerely,

Christoph Lohmann
Received on Thu Nov 06 2014 - 19:18:32 CET