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List:       opensolaris-sparks-discuss
Subject:    [sparks-discuss] Re:  user-defined naming backends
From:       Jeffrey Hutzelman <jhutz+ () cmu ! edu>
Date:       2006-09-20 17:54:45
Message-ID: 6547647.1158800115164.JavaMail.Twebapp () oss-app1
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> As part of the sparks project, not Duckwater, there are plans to open up
> the framework, extend, better document and define public interfaces
> to the nsswitch to add both backends and new get/put APIs.  We plan to
> start those discussions after our first delivery and will work through the
> designs on the sparks opensolaris.org project pages and this discussion
> group.
> 
> It's something customers have been asking for for at least a decade.


Yes, please!  We actually have a private backend today, betting that the existng NSS \
backend interface (which is effectively Private) will remain stable enough for our \
purposes.  In our case, the private backend supports getpwnam only, and is used to \
impement an extended login name syntax that allows users to request certain features, \
some of which involve overriding fields in the data returned by other backends.  So, \
we actually make a recursive call back into the switch, along the same lines as \
nss_compat.

The point is, a Committed backend interface would help us a lot here, as would formal \
support for the ability of a backend to do a recursive call into the switch, \
bypassing the getXbyY interface.

While I'm at it, I should mention that writing tests for this code was rather \
annoying, because I can't use the switch to call my just-compiled backend without \
manual intervention to modify the nss configuration on the live system where the \
tests happen to be running.  It would have been very helpful to be able to select \
alternate configuration on a per-user and/or per-application basis.

-- Jeffrey T. Hutzelman (N3NHS) <jhutz+@cmu.edu>
   Sr. Research Systems Programmer
   School of Computer Science - Research Computing Facility
   Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA
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