[Splashy-devel] Aborting getstring/getpass?

[Teddy Hogeborn]

"Tim Dijkstra" <tim at famdijkstra.org> writes:

> Teddy Hogeborn schreef:
>> Now, how do I tell splashy to abort the password prompt?
>
> I don't think I implemented that...
>
>> If there isn't, I suggest that this be implemented.
>
> What is the use case? Why should you start the dialog and then
> change your mind? I mean, this command is meant to be used from a
> script, I would say the logic in that script should come to the
> conclusion that it needs a password or not _before_ it launches the
> dialog.

We run a network client program to retrieve the password from a
server.  Now, we don't want to be utterly without recourse if the
network server is down or otherwise unavailable.  Therefore we also
run, in parallel, a splashy client program to ask for the password via
splashy.  This normally results in the following order of events:

1. splashy program starts
2. network client program starts
3. splashy client program starts, and sends "getpass" to splashy.
   Splashy shows big red box with password prompt.
4. network client program gets password from network server, and
   signals splashy client program to abort.
5. splashy client program kill()s splashy and starts new splashy
   process.
6. Startup process continues, with scripts now communicating with the
   new splashy process.

I suggest that this, particularly item 5, is less than elegant.

At any time after item 3, the network can come up or the server can
come alive, and the network server can provive a password.  We do not
want to use a timeout here.

Our system which does all this is called "Mandos", and more
information about what it is and why it does the things it does can be
found on its home page, here: http://www.fukt.bsnet.se/mandos

/Teddy, Mandos Developer

-- 
The Mandos Project
http://www.fukt.bsnet.se/mandos
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