shadow-4.2.1

[bdubbs@…]

New minor version. Changes seem benign. Many things, e.g. Changelog, have not been updated, but NEWS has:

*** general
  * Handle libc whose crypt() returns NULL when passed a salt that
    violates specs or system requirements (e.g. FIPS140). This is needed
    with glibc/eglibc 2.17 for tools checking passwords (passwd (non PAM
    enabled) or newgrp), and for tools generating encrypted passwords
    (chgpasswd, chpasswd, or gpasswd when non PAM enabled or when a fixed
    crypt method is requested on the command line, and newusers, or passwd
    in their non PAM enabled versions)
  * Fix segfault when reading groups split on multiple lines. This impacts
    most user/group management tools when MAX_MEMBERS_PER_GROUP is set.

- su
  * When su receives a signal (SIGTERM, or SIGINT/SIGQUIT in non
    interactive mode), kill the child process group, rather than just the
    immediate child.
  * Fix segmentation faults for users without a proper home or shell in
    their passwd entries.

- login
  * Fix segmentation faults for users without a proper home or shell in
    their passwd entries.

*** documentation
  * Fixed useradd man page (--home-dir option, instead of --home).

*** translation
  * Updated Russian translation.
  * Updated German man pages translation.
  * Fixed gshadow Japanese man page translation.

[bdubbs@…]

I'm not sure if we should update to this package or not. The only place i can find it is Debian experimental. Sid is still using 4.1.5.1. Arch and Gentoo are also still at 4.1.5.1. Fedora still seems to be at 4.1.4.2.

The home page of the package, pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org, knows nothing about this version and appears to not to have been updated since 2011.

There does seem to be activity at ​http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-shadow/shadow.git;a=summary, but the newest tarball has all the man pages deleted. I can regenerate them but it requires docbook so for LFS we would need to create out own tarball for that. As well as correcting the Makefile which seems to insist on trying to generate .po files. It also wants the python script xml2po.

A configure file has to be created with 'autoreconf -v -f --install'. The autogen.sh script does that, but also runs configure with options we don't want.

The NEWS file says: "shadow-4.1.5.1 -> shadow-4.2 UNRELEASED"

[Armin]

Source tarball is gone.

[bdubbs@…]

It can be found at ​http://cdn.debian.net/debian/pool/main/s/shadow/

shadow_4.2.orig.tar.xz 22-Apr-2014 03:25 1.0M

[Armin]

Not here. cdn.debian.net is geodns based so I guess mirror closest to me doesn't have it.

[Armin]

Master server has the source though, so it's probbably a problem with the mirror.

​http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/s/shadow/

[bdubbs@…]

Marking for future. This is not a release, but a tarball from version control. We can generate a proper release package from the upstream tarball, but then we are the distributors.

Arch, Ubuntu, and Fedora are not using this. Only found it in Debian experimental (not even unstable).

Wait until upstream really releases the package or other mainstream distros start using it.

[Armin]

Now available at ​http://pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org/releases/

[bdubbs@…]

Replying to Krejzi:

Now available at ​http://pkg-shadow.alioth.debian.org/releases/

It's still the same. They don't have configure or any man pages.

[Armin]

At least it's "real" release.

[bdubbs@…]

Latest version seems to work without any changes to the book.

[bdubbs@…]

Fixed at revision 10557.