On 07/01/2011 01:52 PM, Lennart Poettering wrote:
> On Fri, 01.07.11 13:30, Jeff Licquia ([email protected]) wrote:
>
>>    - "It is valid to implement /var/run as a symlink to /run."  True?
>> Too bold?  Too specific?
>
> On Fedora /var/run is now a symlink to /run. So it's definitely true... ;-)
>
>>    - /var/run/utmp is explicitly mentioned in FHS 2.3.  After looking at
>> Fedora 15, I decided it should stay there, since there's no /run/utmp
>> there.  I figure that having /run/utmp via symlinking /var/run to /run
>> is OK, even though not explicitly mentioned, so there should be no
>> issues.  OTOH, do we want to encourage people to move utmp?
>
> Hmm? On F15 there is a /run/utmp.

How odd.  OTOH, the Fedora system I have has been upgraded; perhaps 
there are some weird upgrade scenarios where a separate /var/run is 
kept.  It has other issues, too, so maybe it's time to redo it.

Do you think there's a strong case to mandate /run/utmp, then?

>>    - I've added explicit rules forbidding use of both /run and /var/run
>> by programs, to prevent confusion.  My thought is that a program should
>> either use /run or /var/run.  Can anyone think of a good reason why a
>> program would want to use both?
>
> Well, for example because they use /run for all its own uses but to
> access utmp it uses _PATH_UTMPX, which will most likely still point to
> /var/run/utmp. Such a use of both /run and /var/run should definitely be
> acceptable.

Yes; the specific wording is something like "except as allowed in the 
section on /var/tmp", which explicitly mentions utmp as one of those 
exceptions.

> Other comments:
>
> "(removed or truncated as appropriate)" ← what do you mean by
> "truncated"? Everything should just go, nothing should be truncated.

I believe the truncation reference may be for utmp.  At least at one 
time, the utmp routines weren't guaranteed to create utmp if it didn't 
exist.

> "... should be unwritable for unprivileged users (root or users running
> daemons)" ← that's easy to misunderstand?

Tweaked.  Here's the new wording:

"...should not be writable for unprivileged users; it is a major 
security problem..."

> "Process identifier (PID) files, which were originally placed in
> <filename>/etc</filename>" ← /etc? Do you mean /var/run?

A long, long time ago, these files were written to /etc.  You sometimes 
still see references to things like /etc/named.pid in old docs.

I considered expanding that statement to include /var/run, but thought 
it might be premature, since we're still allowing programs to use 
/var/run during the transition.

> A bit later you then talk of /var/run/crond.pid which should be
> /run/crond.pid.

Oops!  Fixed.

> "System programs that maintain transient UNIX-domain sockets must place
> them in this directory." ← Or in a subdirectory beneath it.

"...or in a subdirectory as outlined above."  Added.

Thanks for the feedback.

-- 
Jeff Licquia
The Linux Foundation
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[email protected]

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