Re: [Nmh-workers] Garbage collection

[Ken Hornstein]

>The "brokenness" is that OpenBSD simply doesn't implement utmpx, because
>it's seen as an unsafe and insecure interface. OpenBSD aren't the only ones
>who feel this way (the musl C library also doesn't support utmpx, for the
>same reasons: http://www.openwall.com/lists/musl/2012/03/04/4).

I'd find the "security" arguments more compelling if OpenBSD didn't
implement utmp, which has (as far I can tell) the same security issues.
And the security issues aren't inherent in the API, you could implement it
another way (see utmpd on Solaris).

>As far as I know the behavior of the utmpx functions are not defined by
>POSIX either.

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009696899/functions/endutxent.html

Obviously some stuff is unspecified, like what you mean by the "user
accounting database".

--Ken