Documentation/TODO

   1
   2  Note that items with (!) have high priority.
   3
   4 build-sys
   5 ---------
   6   - for example
   7                 ./configure --disable-all-programs --enable-hwclock
   8
   9     enables only hwclock, unfortunately we have no --enable/disable for all programs.
  10     It would be nice to have generic --enable-programs <list>, for example:
  11
  12                 ./configure --disable-all-programs --enable-programs hwclock,lsblk
  13
  14 tests (!):
  15 ---------
  16
  17   - add a new --enable-clang-asan to ./configure
  18   - add a new --asan option to tests/run.sh
  19   - rename tests/run.sh --memcheck to --valgrind
  20   - rename tests/functions.sh:ts_valgrind() to ts_run()
  21   - improve ts_run() to be sensitive to --asan or --valgrind (etc.)
  22   - use export ASAN_OPTIONS='detect_leaks=0' by default
  23   - add TS_ENABLE_MEMLEAK_CHECK=yes to tests where we want to check for
  24     memory leaks
  25
  26     Note we don't want free-before-exit code in simple utils, so no all memory
  27     leaks are relevant. We care about leaks in libs, deamons, etc.
  28
  29   and then we can use
  30
  31     $ ./configure --enable-clang-asan
  32     $ cd tests
  33     $ ./run.sh --asan
  34
  35 su/runuser
  36 ----------
  37   - (!) implement pty container for all su/runuser session (something like
  38     script(1)) to separate user from the original terminal (see CVE-2016-2779)
  39
  40 - add functions strtime_short(), strtime_iso(), strtime_ctime(), ...
  41
  42 cleanup lib/path.c:
  43 ------------------
  44    - always return rc from all functions
  45    - introduce control struct and use openat() from top-level path
  46      (e.g. top-level is /proc, etc)
  47 - use lib/path.c as low-level API for lib/sysfs.c
  48    - now we duplicate code in functions like {path,sysfs}_read_u32, etc.
  49    - it would be also nice to have a way how to redirect sysfs.c functions
  50      to /sys snapshots (e.g. lsblk regression tests)
  51
  52
  53 lscpu
  54 -----
  55   - read cpuid and uname information from file if --sysroot is specified, then
  56     we can prepare regression tests completely independent on hw and architecture.
  57
  58 lsblk
  59 -----
  60   - currently it does not show mountpoint for all devices in btrfs RAID. It's because
  61     /proc/#/mountinfo contains reference to the one device only. Maybe we can add some
  62     btrfs specific code to provide a better output for FS based stacks. Not sure.
  63     https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1084453
  64
  65 cfdisk
  66 ------
  67   - (!) add auto-sort support (sort partitions automatically) and
  68     --sort={auto,never,always} command line option. This feature should be
  69     enabled by default for logical partitions if we created all container (extended
  70     partition) in the current session.
  71
  72
  73 agetty
  74 -----
  75   - support default issue (/etc/issue) output for agetty to make it agetty
  76     usable on systems with empty /etc.
  77
  78     This change is little bit controversial, because now agetty prints nothing
  79     by default and it's probably used by admins to hide information about the
  80     system to unauthorized users. We already have --noissue to disable issue
  81     output. The question is if admins use this option, "rm /etc/issue" is
  82     probably easer than modify inittab (or systemd unit file).
  83
  84     Maybe we can implement it by --enable-agetty-default-issue compile option and
  85     move the decision to downstream maintainers ;-)
  86
  87 nsenter(1)
  88 ----------
  89  - read the default UID and GID from the target process.
  90    http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.utilities.util-linux-ng/9553/focus=9585
  91
  92 hwlock
  93 ------
  94  - use /var/lib/hwclock/drift to store hw-clock drift numbers.
  95  - use /etc/adjtime as read-only for UTC/LOCAL information only
  96  - the /var/lib/hwclock/drift should be implemented backwardly compatible,
  97    it means use the file only if exists, otherwise follow /etc/adjtime
  98
  99 bash completion
 100 ---------------
 101 - Optional argument handling requires user to press backspace to get
 102   argument completion.
 103 - Comma separated value, e.g., --output 'value1,value2', are not
 104   completed for users.
 105
 106 libmount (mount/umount)
 107 -----------------------
 108
 109  - support CAP_SYS_ADMIN; for mount(2) syscall the CAP_SYS_ADMIN is good
 110    enough. Unfortunately, mount(8) does more things like check for filesystem
 111    type (but it's usually done by udev, so root perms are unnecessary), create
 112    loop devices, write to /run/mount/utab or /etc/mtab, etc.
 113
 114    It would be nice to improve libmount to check for CAP_SYS_ADMIN if suid not
 115    set and allow to use it for simple tasks where no another operation is
 116    necessary.
 117
 118  - allow to execute mount(2) in another namespace, something like:
 119         mount --namespace=/proc/$n/ns/mnt  /dev/sda2 /bar
 120    see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1199554 for more details.
 121
 122  - add options to control fstab/mtab mount options usage, something like:
 123
 124    --options-mode={ignore,append,prepend,replace}      MNT_OMODE_{IGNORE, ...}
 125    --options-source={fstab,mtab,disable}               MNT_OMODE_{FSTAB,MTAB,NOTAB}
 126    --options-source-force                              MNT_OMODE_FORCE
 127
 128    (all this already supported by libmount)
 129
 130
 131 partx
 132 -----
 133
 134  - support mapping by device-mapper if argv[0] is "kpartx" or --dm option is used.
 135
 136
 137 docs
 138 ----
 139
 140  - (!) use something better than gtk-doc for libmount and libblkid (doxyden?)
 141
 142  - (!) add API documentation to libuuid
 143
 144 exit codes
 145 ----------
 146
 147   - we need coreutils-like exit codes for failed exec(). See:
 148     https://www.spinics.net/lists/util-linux-ng/msg12776.html
 149     and original attempt:
 150     https://github.com/karelzak/util-linux/pull/311
 151
 152 login-utils:
 153 -----------
 154
 155   - consolidate newgrp(1)
 156     * we have "su --group/--supp-group" to switch between groups, newgrp(1) in
 157       util-linux and shadow-utils (and sg(1) alias in shadow-utils)
 158     * the unique functionality provided by newgpr(1) is support for group
 159       passwords [/etc/gshadow] -- do we really need this functionality?
 160     * maybe we can mark group-passwords as deprecated, and replace sg(1) and
 161       newgpr(1) with su(1) code. The another way is to ask fro group password in
 162       su --group too.
 163     * note that shadow-utils newgpr(1) provides support for syslog and audit log.
 164
 165
 166 libblkid
 167 --------
 168
 169  - (!) don't use internally blkid_loff_t, rather use off_t, size_t, ssize_t,
 170        stdint.h types and so on...
 171
 172  - add FSSIZE value  -- filesystem size (klibc requirement)
 173
 174  - (!) add support for Atari PT
 175        https://github.com/karelzak/util-linux/issues/517
 176
 177  - (!) add support for dasd PT (used for example on s390)
 178
 179 libfdisk
 180 --------
 181
 182  - add support for Apple Partition Map (see libblkid/src/partitions/mac.c)
 183    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Partition_Map
 184
 185 misc
 186 ----
 187
 188  - add mllockall() and SCHED_FIFO to hwclock,
 189    see http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/10/12/132
 190
 191
 192 ---------------
 193 exotic requests
 194 ---------------
 195
 196  - add SELinux security contexts support to the 'ipcs' utility
 197    http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=225342
 198
 199    Would be great to list the current system IPC Objects with their respective
 200    security labels (where allowed) with something like 'ipcs -Z' - following the
 201    way other tools reports those.
 202
 203