On Mon, Aug 04, 2025 at 08:22:52PM -0400, Ionen Wolkens wrote: > On Mon, Aug 04, 2025 at 11:33:15PM +0100, Sam James wrote: > > This lets us avoid suid in many cases and I can't see a reason to not > > do it. USE=caps generally means "use libcap (or libcap-ng) to have needed > > privileges, rather than suid". sys-libs/libcap is an unconditional > > dependency > > of important packages anyway like sya-apps/openrc, sys-auth/elogind, and > > sys-apps/systemd. > > > > There is an argument against filecaps/xattr by default, but we *do* > > enable those by default already and we just disable them for stages to > > allow portability and unpacking to exotic filesystems. > > > > Prompted by bug #961054 (which was a problem in another regard or two, > > but nonetheless reminded us about this). > > > > Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/961054 > > Signed-off-by: Sam James <[email protected]> > > +1 from me > > Albeit perhaps one thing that may be worth mentioning (at a glance) > is util-linux[caps]. > > 1. it depends on libcap-ng rather than libcap > > 2. libcap-ng is pretty small, but when it's going to be pulled > for almost *every* users when I think(?) "most" likely did not > have it before may be worth thinking about (for me it's pulled > by qemu either way but that has a more limited userbase) > > 3. util-linux[caps] only controls installing setpriv(1), it's IMO > a nice/useful tool but afaik most users do not really know/use it > and will more typically use `su -c` as root -- assuming that they > need to do this at all
Or runuser like Eli noted, kind of forgot. Lot of alternatives, albeit setpriv does have some nice options over many others. > > Providing that by default still doesn't sound so bad (it's not > suid-root unlike su, meant to be used by a privileged user), but > moving it to IUSE=setpriv could be an option. Renaming USE does > disrupt users like usual though and some users may rely on this tool > for important scripts. Regardless of if we make it default or not, could argue that IUSE=setpriv fits better here though, and makes it clearer what the USE is for. > > I don't really mind either way myself, just thought it'd be worth > mentioning. -- ionen
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