Comment 5 for bug 873784

Created attachment 54623
Use getpwent() instead of fgetpwent()

I'm one of the affected users from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/accountsservice/+bug/873784 with some additional comments.

I notice a recent commit ((http://cgit.freedesktop.org/accountsservice/commit/?id=dfa1a6239b01c823ce0fec781c6c9541c988f56e) enables getpwent() for systems that don't have fgetpwent(). I think it makes sense to do the same for every OS, and remove all references to fgetpwent(). The code changes to use getpwent() are fairly trivial--a patch is attached. I've tested these changes on a VM running Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric), local passwd entries seem to work fine, so as far as I can tell, this change doesn't break anything.

Using the general getpwent() command doesn't completely address the use of network pw entries, though. If the accounts daemon starts before a network connection is available, it won't be able to obtain information from the network pw entry database.

I think the best way to resolve the connectivity issue is to modify the accounts daemon to regularly poll the pw entries for new users and notify interested services, in much the same way the daemon currently monitors the passwd file. It doesn't seem like a good idea to delay the start of the accounts daemon until a network connection is available (particularly for laptops). Running the accounts daemon as a service and restarting it when a network connection comes up would probably work, but seems over-weight and clunky.

Does anyone have objections or know that the polling scheme is impractical? If not, I'll get to work on a patch.