>Number:         5261
>Category:       lib
>Synopsis:       sysctl user.cs_path should be eliminated
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    lib-bug-people (Library Bug People)
>State:          open
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Apr  7 15:05:00 1998
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Erik E. Fair
>Organization:
International Organization of Internet Clock Watchers
>Release:        NetBSD-current 19980407
>Environment:
	
System: NetBSD digital.clock.org 1.2G NetBSD 1.2G (DIGITAL) #7: Wed Jun 18 13:56:59 PDT 1997 root@digital.clock.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/sparc/compile/DIGITAL sparc


>Description:
	The "user.cs_path" item in the sysctl MIB is _PATH_STDPATH
	from <paths.h>.

	The apparent presumption is that rather than referencing
	<paths.h>, a program could call sysctl to get _PATH_STDPATH,
	and thereby get an administrator-altered-runtime version
	of it, as appropriate.

	However, "user.cs_path" lives in the C library, not in the
	kernel. To change it for the runtime, a new shared C library
	must be built; statically linked programs (e.g. /sbin/init)
	must be recompiled. Systems which do not support shared
	libraries lose completely - total recompilation required.

	The programs that might most benefit from having a system-wide
	default path (e.g. /bin/sh, /bin/csh) are statically linked.
	Also, those programs should be using _PATH_DEFPATH, which is
	pretty clearly intended for users, as opposed to PATH_STDPATH
	which is intended for system operations (e.g. /etc/rc)

	Recursive egrep of the system source tree for -current failed to
	produce any uses of this sysctl MIB item.

	The only utility I can see that this has is as an example of a MIB
	string.

>How-To-Repeat:
	Source Code & Documentation Inspection
>Fix:
	remove source code from lib/libc/gen/sysctl.c sysctl.3 and sysctl.5
	references.
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: