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Date:      Thu, 5 Aug 1999 15:43:18 +1000
From:      Peter Jeremy <jeremyp@gsmx07.alcatel.com.au>
To:        jdp@polstra.com
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: NSS Project
Message-ID:  <99Aug5.152359est.40396@border.alcanet.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <199908050344.UAA02817@vashon.polstra.com>

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John Polstra <jdp@polstra.com> wrote:
>Peter Jeremy  <jeremyp@gsmx07.alcatel.com.au> wrote:
>> Assar Westerlund <assar@sics.se> wrote:
>> >Peter Jeremy <jeremyp@gsmx07.alcatel.com.au> writes:
>> >> We need to be able to build an application that has no dynamically
>> >> loaded code for recovery purposes (/stand and /sbin) as well as for
>> >> security.
>> >
>> >Isn't that the same problem as with PAM?
>> 
>> Quite probably PAM has the same problem.  I haven't bumped into it
>> with PAM, so I can't be sure.
>
>When you're not sure, it's really best to find out or keep quiet
>on the mailing list.

Maybe I should have worded it differently:  In order to build statically
linked applications, both PAM and NSS have to solve a similar problem.
If it can or has been solved for PAM (which I wasn't sure about), the
same (or a very similar) solution will work for NSS.

> PAM doesn't work in statically-linked
>executables" -- which is false.  It works fine.

I apologize if I gave anyone the impression that you couldn't build
statically linked executables with libpam.

>  It is implemented
>using a linker set approach which you are encouraged to investigate in
>the sources.

A similar approach should work for NSS, though a case could probably
be made for having statically linking mean `only rely on local files'.

>> the situation where init can fail to load ...  because the appropriate
>> encryption library is on a partition that isn't mounted yet

I should also point out that init doesn't use PAM at present, so this
problem can't occur.  (The downside if that if the root password
doesn't use the default encryption method, init won't be able to
validate it).

>  But nothing would be qualitatively
>different if we went to an all-dynamic scheme (which I hope we will do
>some day).
I recall having a similar static-vs-dynamic discussion with you a couple
of years ago.  My position was (and still is) that for most purposes
dynamic linking is a definite advantage, but we should continue to
permit static linking for applications that want it (which Sun doesn't).

Peter


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