Re: newgrp feature request: -c option (like su)

[Karel Zak <kzak@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, May 07, 2008 at 10:44:56AM -0400, Keith Hanlan wrote:
> Karel Zak wrote:
>> On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 05:47:27PM -0400, Keith Hanlan wrote:
>>   
>>> I've long wished for a version of newgrp that accepted the "-c <command>" 
>>> option in the same manner as "su".
>>>
>>> Perhaps I'm missing some security implication here but I've always been 
>>> puzzled by the absence of this seemingly obvious facility.
>>>     
>>
>>  Do you really need to use newgrp(1) from util-linux?
>>
>>  The implementation from shadow-utils supports "sg" alias and the
>>  option "-c".
>>
>>      sg <groupname> -c <command>
>>   
> Thank you Karel. I've been missing that utility for years. I have to 
> question why it's a separate utility though. It seems to me that the 
> additional functionality would make a natural extension to newgrp. I also 
> don't understand why newgrp is not part of core-utils, especially given 
> that "su" is. It seems a shame to restrict sg to Linux. Adding to the 
> confusion, I've just noticed that shadow-utils includes its own newgrp 
> command and sg is simply a link to newgrp. In other words, do you really 
> need to include newgrp with util-linux? Perhaps you could simply deprecate 
> it and the distributions could start picking up the more capable version 
> via shaadow-utils.

 I think many distributions already use login utils stuff from shadow-utils.

 BTW, see the file util-linux-ng/DEPRECATED:

     What:   newgrp(1)
     When:   undefined yet
     Why:    deprecated in favor of newgrp from shadow-utils


 but... I think we will maintain login-utils/ in util-linux-ng for
 really long time, because it seems than some people still use it. We
 shouldn't forget that Linux is not only mainstream distributions
 (like Suse, Fedora, Debina, Gentoo, ...).

    Karel

-- 
 Karel Zak  <kzak@xxxxxxxxxx>
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