I'm considering making some enhancements to the CVSROOT/passwd file
format and I'd like people's opinions:
First, I'd like to interpret "*" in the password field as "the system
password for this user". That would allow people who are not concerned
with network security to use system passwords along with user mapping.
For example, one could have a CVSROOT/passwd that looked like:
john:*:cvsadmin
lisa:*:cvsadmin
bill:*:cvsuser
anne:*:cvsuser
instead of having to give everyone separate CVS passwords or copy their
system passwords into CVSROOT/passwd and then having to worry about
keeping them in sync.
Second, I'd like to interpret "*" in the username field as "any system
user". That would allow even more simplification -- for example:
*:*:cvsuser
could be used to allow any system user to run CVS; or
*:asdfghjklqwer:nobody
could be used to allow anyone who knows the password to run CVS.
An interesting side-effect of these changes is that the SystemAuth
config option would no longer be needed:
*:*
is equivalent to SystemAuth=yes, and
*:x
(or any other impossible password) is equivalent to SystemAuth=no. This
has the added advantage of keeping all the password-related stuff in one
place.
-Larry Jones
You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well MINE are even WORSE!
-- Calvin
