Debian Bug report logs - #16072
tcsh doesn't modify /etc/shells

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Anand Kumria <wildfire@progsoc.uts.edu.au>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: tcsh doesn't modify /etc/shells

Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 15:05:34 +1100 (EST)

Package: tcsh
Version: 6.07.02-1

After I purged tcsh from my system I still found its entry in /etc/shells
- I think shells should modify this file as they are installed/removed
from the system.

Regards,
Anand.

--
 `When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to
  its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are
  forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how
  holy the motives' -- Robert A Heinlein, "If this goes on --"

Message #10 received at 16072-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Luis Francisco Gonzalez <luisgh@cogs.susx.ac.uk>

To: 16072-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: tcsh can't touch the /etc/shells file

Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 16:29:11 +0100

After taking this up in debian-policy, I got this:

"Since that file belongs to another package, and shells do not
add to that file, shell should not delete entries from the file
either. 

     Now, one may ask the asswd package to provide a simple
(trivial) command to add and remove entries from the file. Howevr, I
am not convinced that arbitary commands should be allowed to modify
that file at all. The contents of that file are an important part of
the security policy for a site." (Manoj Srivastava)

Per policy I am not allowed to touch that file and I think it Manoj
has a point in that the file could open unwanted doors into the system
and thus should be left untouched as specified by the SysAdmin.

Luis.
-- 
Luis Francisco Gonzalez <luisgh@cogs.susx.ac.uk>
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