Bug 35942

Comment 1 Giorgos Keramidas 2002-03-16 16:41:05 UTC

On 2002-03-15 18:15, Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
>
> The at(1) manual doesn't describe the format of the at.allow and at.deny
> files (in "/var/at/").
>
> >Fix:
>
> Determine the allowed formats and add descriptions to the manual.

Well, it sort of does.  Quoting the manpage.

     If the file /var/at/at.allow exists, only usernames
     mentioned in it are allowed to use at.

This needs to be made more descriptive though.
What do you think of the following?

Index: at.man
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/ncvs/src/usr.bin/at/at.man,v
retrieving revision 1.27
diff -4 -u -r1.27 at.man
--- at.man	15 Mar 2002 15:26:57 -0000	1.27
+++ at.man	16 Mar 2002 16:38:17 -0000
@@ -173,16 +173,22 @@
 If the file
 .Pa _PERM_PATH/at.allow
 exists, only usernames mentioned in it are allowed to use
 .Nm .
+Add the names of the users that should be allowed to run
+.Nm
+to this file, one per line.
 .Pp
 If
 .Pa _PERM_PATH/at.allow
 does not exist,
 .Pa _PERM_PATH/at.deny
 is checked, every username not mentioned in it is then allowed
 to use
 .Nm Ns .
+Add the names of the users that should not be allowed to run
+.Nm
+to this file, one per line.
 .Pp
 If neither exists, only the superuser is allowed use of
 .Nm Ns .
 This is the default configuration.

Giorgos Keramidas                       FreeBSD Documentation Project
keramida@{freebsd.org,ceid.upatras.gr}  http://www.FreeBSD.org/docproj/

Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@freebsd.org> writes:

Much of what you added is already explained in the manual in a less
ambiguous manner.  I fear that your addition (especially for "deny")
will confuse some readers.  Please excuse my bluntness.

Better to limit your addition to the format of the file, which in your
patch is "one per line".  And since users often make guesses about what
might be allowed, namely leading or trailing whitespace and comments, it
should "head off" failed experiments by being explicit on those topics.

I haven't looked at the code and so won't propose wording, but for the
crontab(1)'s manual, my patch contained

    In these two files, a user is considered to be listed only if the
    user name has no blank or other characters before it on its line and
    a newline character immediately after the name, even at the end of
    the file.  Other lines are ignored and may be used for comments.

This was discussed back in October along with discussion of changing the
program's end-of-file behavior, but I don't see any changes in the 4.5
crontab manual and I do see that users see it dated "1993"; both bad
"PR", in one sense or another. :)

Comment 3 Giorgos Keramidas 2003-03-26 02:38:28 UTC

State Changed
From-To: open->patched

Finally get around to testing and committing the excellent 
suggestion of Gary. 

Comment 4 Giorgos Keramidas 2003-03-26 02:38:28 UTC

Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-doc->keramida

I'll do teh MFC.

Comment 5 Giorgos Keramidas 2003-05-03 22:55:56 UTC

State Changed
From-To: patched->closed

Merged to RELENG_4.