Re: Healing the bash fork

[Gennady Kupava <gennady.kupava () gmail com>]

> We need to keep support exporting functions to grandchildren through
non-bash processes (that is, bash -> some-other-program -> bash)

But the way bash does such export right now is undefined behavior according
to UNIX definitions. If you export some function and the variable with same
name you will get two environment variables with same name, isn't this kind
of bad design in any case?

2014-09-30 10:30 GMT+01:00 Florian Weimer <fweimer () redhat com>:

> On 09/30/2014 05:11 AM, gremlin () gremlin ru wrote:
>
> > On 29-Sep-2014 22:34:20 -0400, Chet Ramey wrote:
> >
> >   >> What is the motivation to not store executable code (functions)
> >   >> differently from standard variables?
> >
> >   > What would you use for such a store, considering the environment
> >   > is the only portable way to pass this information from one process
> >   > to another in the general case, and support the current set of
> >   > use cases?
> >
> > C.O. to the rescue: temporary file.
>
> You cannot use a named temporary file because the creator does not know
> its required lifetime.  That's a challenge all solutions not based on the
> process environment will face.
>
> Theoretically, you could pass an unnamed temporary file via a file
> descriptor, and communicate the descriptor number in some safe way (but
> what's that, if you don't trust the environment?).  But that's going to be
> far less interoperable than what we currently have, and barely more secure.
>
>  If one shell instance needs to pass some functions to another, it
> > could dump those functions to a temporary file and pass the --load
> > (or, better, --load-functions) options with a filename parameter.
>
> We need to keep support exporting functions to grandchildren through
> non-bash processes (that is, bash -> some-other-program -> bash).
>
> --
> Florian Weimer / Red Hat Product Security