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Re: Proposal for write(1) addition



Hi,

> > > > according to somebody from the #tmux-channel in freenode, tmux does
> > > > not set utmp entries because they would need additional permissions
> > > > for that.
> > > 
> > > That could be easily fixed by adding a utmp-writing daemon that took
> > > unix domain messages from clients.  Each message would pass both creds,
> > > so the user in question could be authenticated, and rights, so the
> > > utmp daemon could validate that in fact the client had an open file
> > > descriptor to the terminal it was claiming to be logged in on.
> > > 
> > > This would have the added benefit that the utmp writing daemon could
> > > run as a _utmp role account instead of as root...
> > > 
> > > Should work, no?
> > this would have been the cleanest solution, if you had it right from the
> > beginning on.
> 
> I can just put the code in libutil for all callers.
> 
> Now if I only had something bigger than a smartphone to type on...
> it'll have to go on my list, for the moment.
but this behaviour would break login accounting as the output and sense of
`w`/`who` as well.

Anyway, I didn't expect to meet such an objection (and I still think this
is the way it should be handled, by not using utmp for permission things that
should be handled by mesg).
It might be the easiest way to forget about that issue and I just use a local
patch that disables the check for utmp entries when specifying a terminal to
write to.


Regards, Julian

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