Re: [bug #68587] Prefer runuser over su

On 8/9/26 17:04, James Youngman wrote:
> Sorry, I'm not able to log in to Savannah today; the login page gives
> HTTP 502 errors.

oh.

> Go ahead and apply the patch, thanks.   I think runuser is a big
> improvement here.
> 
> However, the `which` command is not in POSIX.   The POSIX alternative
> is `command -v` I think.

I've personally never used 'command', but rather either 'which' or type'.
Anyway, as you wrote ...

>    However, perhaps we can just run it to find
> out if it is usable:
> 
> runuser  -s /bin/sh -c true "$LOCALUSER"

we could leave it up to the actual run of the tool.

> I also note that the code we are changing here had some variables that
> should have been better quoted.

Indeed.  To be honest, the updatedb script is quite some mess with regards
to quoting, but also about initializing variables, boldly taking over values
from the environment, the locality of variables, redundant code paths, etc.

If we want to enhance it, then this means a 80% rewrite, I'm afraid.

Have a nice day,
Berny