Bug 101629

Do any distributions still use pam_console or pam_foreground, or allow users to configure their systems to use them?

What would be the benefits of dropping support for this (apart from the obvious ones of decreased maintenance burden)? Is this part of your push to eliminate /var/run in favour of /run? If so, does keeping the support for /var/run/console harm that goal if it’s only enabled on old systems which use those PAM modules?

(In reply to Philip Withnall from comment #1)
> Do any distributions still use pam_console or pam_foreground, or allow users
> to configure their systems to use them?

I don't know. We could try asking the mailing list?

pam_console seems to have been removed in Fedora 8, and the transition page https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureRemovePAMConsole says it was always essentially Fedora-specific, other than Fedora derivatives and "a few minor distributions"; although that's somewhat contradicted by references to it being removed from Gentoo in 2007. (Perhaps the Fedora developers thought of Gentoo as a minor distribution?)

pam_foreground seems to have only been used in Ubuntu and Debian. In Debian, it was unmaintained since 2008 and finally removed in 2016.

> What would be the benefits of dropping support for this (apart from the
> obvious ones of decreased maintenance burden)?

Deleting dead code is the only benefit, really.

> Is this part of your push to
> eliminate /var/run in favour of /run? If so, does keeping the support for
> /var/run/console harm that goal if it’s only enabled on old systems which
> use those PAM modules?

It's always enabled on Unix systems (although the code is never reached if using systemd-logind), so step 1 would be to make it opt-in.

(In reply to Simon McVittie from comment #2)
> (In reply to Philip Withnall from comment #1)
> > Do any distributions still use pam_console or pam_foreground, or allow users
> > to configure their systems to use them?
> 
> I don't know. We could try asking the mailing list?

Worth a quick e-mail, I suppose. Probably best phrased as a ‘we’re going to make this opt-in, then drop it afterwards; does anyone object?’ rather than as ‘who’s using pam_*?’.

> pam_console seems to have been removed in Fedora 8, and the transition page
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureRemovePAMConsole says it was
> always essentially Fedora-specific, other than Fedora derivatives and "a few
> minor distributions"; although that's somewhat contradicted by references to
> it being removed from Gentoo in 2007. (Perhaps the Fedora developers thought
> of Gentoo as a minor distribution?)
> 
> pam_foreground seems to have only been used in Ubuntu and Debian. In Debian,
> it was unmaintained since 2008 and finally removed in 2016.

That’s quite conclusive.

> > What would be the benefits of dropping support for this (apart from the
> > obvious ones of decreased maintenance burden)?
> 
> Deleting dead code is the only benefit, really.

\o/

> > Is this part of your push to
> > eliminate /var/run in favour of /run? If so, does keeping the support for
> > /var/run/console harm that goal if it’s only enabled on old systems which
> > use those PAM modules?
> 
> It's always enabled on Unix systems (although the code is never reached if
> using systemd-logind), so step 1 would be to make it opt-in.

Seems reasonable to make it opt-in for one minor release, then drop it in the following minor release.

(In reply to Simon McVittie from comment #2)
> pam_foreground seems to have only been used in Ubuntu and Debian. In Debian,
> it was unmaintained since 2008 and finally removed in 2016.

Actually, it was removed in 2010, and replaced by a transitional package that pulled in its ConsoleKit equivalent. That transitional package is what was removed in 2016.

Created attachment 134465 [details] [review]
Deprecate the pam_console/pam_foreground flag-file directory

This feature is now compile-time conditional, and off by default.

pam_console appears to have been in Fedora and Gentoo until 2007.
pam_foreground seems to be specific to Debian and Ubuntu, where it was
unmaintained since 2008 and removed in 2010. The replacement for both
was ConsoleKit, which has itself been superseded by systemd-logind and
ConsoleKit2.

---

NEWS entry included.

Comment on attachment 134465 [details] [review]
Deprecate the pam_console/pam_foreground flag-file directory

Review of attachment 134465 [details] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

++

Disabled by default in 1.11.18. We can release 1.12.x with it still possible to enable, then rip out the functionality in 1.13.x if nobody has spoken up in favour of it.

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