Re: Proposal for write(1) addition

[Julio Merino <jmmv%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

On 9/17/11 5:49 AM, Julian Fagir wrote:
> 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.
> Adding it now would end up in complexity of another daemon running and using
> memory for something elementary as write, being incompatible with all other
> OSs.
> You would have to fix *all* programs (in pkgsrc) that create shells - that's
> not only tmux, but afaik most of the X terminal emulations out there.
> 
> With respect to tmux, I don't know much about the import into base, but even
> now it is not the most recent version (1.4 vs. 1.5),

tmux in base is at 1.5.

> patching such things
> would make it harder to update base's tmux.

The authors of tmux are quite responsive.  We really should not patch
tmux locally without discussing things first with upstream.

-- 
Julio Merino / @jmmv