Re: [PATCH] Deprecate libcrypt and don't build it by default.

[Zack Weinberg <zackw@panix.com>]

On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 4:16 PM, Joseph Myers <joseph@codesourcery.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Aug 2017, Zack Weinberg wrote:
>> Back in June, Björn Esser proposed to add OpenBSD-compatible bcrypt
>> support to our implementation of crypt(3), and I replied that it might
>> actually make more sense to _remove_ libcrypt from glibc, freeing up
>> libcrypt.so.1 and crypt.h to be provided by a separate project that
>> could move faster.  (For instance, libxcrypt:
>> https://github.com/besser82/libxcrypt)
>
> I don't believe libxcrypt's claim to be a binary-compatible replacement
> for libcrypt.so.1.  It looks to me like it uses symbol version GLIBC_2.0
> unconditionally for the glibc symbols, when the actual base version
> depends on the architecture / ABI for which glibc is built; GLIBC_2.0 is
> only for a few architectures such as i386 with very longstanding ports.

Well, that's just a plain old bug.  Obviously a bug that needs to be
fixed before we can call libxcrypt a binary-compatible drop-in
replacement, but not a _difficult_ bug - they can crib from the
libcrypt.abilist files.  I'm willing to try to work up a patch if
Björn agrees.

(The soname needs to be libcrypt.so.1.1 on alpha, too.)

zw