HEADS-UP: Deprecation of legacy (v3) password database support

[Rodney W. Grimes]

> FreeBSD password databases (/etc/pwd.db, /etc/spwd.db) can contain
> records in one or both of two versions:
>  * v3, a legacy architecture-dependent format
>  * v4, the current architecture- and endian-independent format
> 
> When v4 support was added in 2003 (r113596) pwd_mkdb emitted both v3 and
> v4 records in the output database.  In 2015 r283981 added a -l option to
> control the emission of legacy v3 records; by default only v4 records
> are emitted.
> 
> r283981's commit message states:
> 
>     The -l, -B and -L options are considered deprecated and will be
>     removed in FreeBSD 12.0 release.
> 
> I'd expect little impact if the -l, -B and -L options are removed, as
> r113596 is included in FreeBSD 5.1 and later.  If legacy support is
> removed then software built on FreeBSD 5.0 or earlier will no longer be
> able to make use of password file data (via getpwent, getpwnam, etc.).
> Such software would still function inside of a jail that has a v3
> password database, of course.
> 
> Is anyone using pwd_mkdb's -l option and relying on legacy password
> database files in a non-jailed context?

You would reach a more likely audience on freebsd-stable than on
freebsd-current.

-- 
Rod Grimes                                                 rgrimes at freebsd.org