Re: [PATCH 2/3] image.bbclass: remove zap_root_password

[Mark Hatle <mark.hatle@windriver.com>]

On 12/10/13, 6:15 AM, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> Hi Qi,
>
> On Tuesday 10 December 2013 17:58:51 Qi.Chen@windriver.com wrote:
>> From: Chen Qi <Qi.Chen@windriver.com>
>>
>> This function replaces the root password with '*' if 'debug-tweaks'
>> is not in IMAGE_FEATURES. As a result, if we don't have 'debug-tweaks',
>> we would be locked out of the system. That means, if the user uses a
>> bbappend file for base-passwd to set the root password, he would not be
>> able to login as root; if the user uses 'EXTRA_USERS_PARAMS' to set
>> the root password, he would still not be able to login as root.
>>
>> In a word, this function should be removed to make things work correctly.
>
> Er, unless I'm missing something about what you're adding in the other patch,
> you *cannot* simply remove this. The intentional design of the existing code
> is that having "debug-tweaks" in IMAGE_FEATURES means that you can log in as
> root with no password; but most importantly if "debug-tweaks" is not present
> you cannot log in at all as root (in the absence of anything that sets the
> root password, of course). Any changes must preserve this behaviour.

I agree.  The default behavior on most systems should be absolutely no way to 
directly login as root.  Instead logins should occur based on a non-privileged 
user.  (The other patches in that set look good to me.)

--Mark

> Cheers,
> Paul
>