RE: [gentoo-dev] suggestion: virtual/telnet

["Allen Parker" <allenp@efn.org>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ciaran McCreesh [mailto:ciaranm@gentoo.org]
> Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2003 6:06 PM
> To: gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org
> Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] suggestion: virtual/telnet
> 
> On Sat, 27 Dec 2003 23:03:23 +0100 Spider <spider@gentoo.org> wrote:
> | Well,
> |   this is something that a lot of users ask about (how do I get
> |   telnet?)
> 
> Wouldn't it be better to educate the users to get rid of that 'type in
> emerge telnet to install telnet' mentality?
> 
> --
> Ciaran McCreesh
> Mail:    ciaranm at gentoo.org
> Web:     http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm



I must pipe up on this one. When a user asks for "telnet" they're usually
not aware of the security risks involved. (kinda makes me wonder why it's
installed by default on Debian :-\) Probably the best way to handle this is
to create a virtual/telnet and add a default package that when uninstalled
displays a basic readme saying telnet isn't secure and why, asks the user if
they still want to do it, and THEN after they've confirmed that they do in
fact want telnet, allow them to emerge whichever telnet they choose.

So, to re-state because I'm not even sure what I said up there:
Create package block-telnet that does as it's name implies, blocks the
virtual/telnet package so that no other telnetd/telnet client may be emerged
without removing it first.
Setup block-telnet to install something like /usr/share/doc/telnet-readme
(the contents of the same thing you read when you remove block-telnet) and
upon unmerge fire off a simple shell script that less's the same file
(hidden) that is telnet-readme with a yes/no choice saying are you sure you
wish to remove me?
Add block-telnet -> virtual/telnet as a virtual/telnet blocker by default
for all arch/stage/devel profiles under system instead of world and make it
a default package (like nano) for Gentoo 2004.

It honestly seems to me that this would probably take any dev minutes to set
the virtual up this way and it would also allow very fast, short answers in
regards to getting questions on telnet:

Eg:
User: how do I install telnet?
Dev: emerge unmerge block-telnet ... and read what it says.
User: thanks for your help!

That's my 2/100ths of a monetary unit.
Allen Parker

PS: when used in this manner, it's hardly cruft.


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