[Bug 1068889] Re: nscd should not cache netgroups by default

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

This bug was fixed in the package eglibc - 2.15-0ubuntu20.1

---------------
eglibc (2.15-0ubuntu20.1) quantal; urgency=low

  * Add patch ubuntu/local-disable-nscd-netgroup-caching.diff to
    disable netgroup caching in the default config (LP: #1068889)
  * Backport any/cvs-malloc-deadlock.diff from upstream to prevent
    glibc deadlocking in mallock arena retry paths (LP: #1081734)
  * Fix futex issue (BZ #13844), backport from 2.16 (LP: #1091186)
  * Drop patch any/local-disable-nscd-host-caching.diff, as this
    bug was apparently resolved upstream a while ago (LP: #613662)
  * Add patch any/cvs-ld-self-load.diff to restore ld.so's ability
    to load itself, a behaviour accidentally removed (LP: #1088677)
  * Drop dangling libnss_db.so symlink in libc6-dev (LP: #1088773)
 -- Adam Conrad <adconrad at ubuntu.com>   Sun, 27 Jan 2013 16:46:30 -0700

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1068889

Title:
  nscd should not cache netgroups by default

Status in “eglibc” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “eglibc” source package in Precise:
  Fix Released
Status in “eglibc” source package in Quantal:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  [Impact / Justification]
  The new netgroup caching feature seems to be plagued with issues, including random segfaults, and just plain not returning useful results, depending on your test bed.  This patch doesn't address any of the actual issues, but just disabled netgroup caching in the default /etc/nscd.conf to discourage its use.

  [Test Case]
  Check after upgrade or fresh install that /etc/nscd.conf has netgroup caching disabled.  This being a dpkg conffile, it won't be changed if you've modified it locally.

  [Regression Potential]
  Disabling a broken feature doesn't likely have much regression potential.  We got here after spending a great deal of time trying to debug all the breakages with someone who was trying to use it, so I'm unconvinced anyone's using it successfully.

  [Original Report]
  Netgroup caching is a rather new feature of nscd.  It only entered the eglibc source tree late last year and the first upstream release of nscd to include netgroup caching was on March 21, 2012 [1].  Thus, it's is a feature that is not likely deployed at any significant scale anywhere currently.  And so it has poor general test coverage.

  We have reports that this feature either segfaults nscd [1] or that
  even when it doesn't crash, the feature still doesn't work [2].

  The "enabled" setting is inherited from upstream, but I think at least
  for precise, we should default to disabled.

  [1] LP: #997096
  [2] LP: #997752

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