#1024129 ITP: tacacs+ -- TACACS+ authentication daemon

#1024129#5
Date:
2022-11-15 07:11:55 UTC
From:
To:
* Package name    : tacacs+
  Version         : 4.0.4.29
  Upstream Author : Lol Grant <tac_plus@shrubbery.net>
* URL             : http://www.shrubbery.net/tac_plus/
* License         : GPL
  Programming Lang: C
  Description     : TACACS+ authentication daemon

The package was removed from Debian due to inactivity of the
upstream project *and* inactivity of the Debian maintainer:

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/tacacs+

I have since repackaged it, updating to the latest packaging
standards, and uploaded to mentors:

https://mentors.debian.net/package/tacacs+/

The version uploaded is 4.0.4.27a, the same as previously
found in Debian but I'm ready to package the latest available
4.0.4.29 as I have imported it into my Git for future maintenance:

https://github.com/kravietz/tac_plus/

The value of the package is that it's the only TACACS+ server
daemon available so far in Debian. The code base is stable,
new feature requests are unlikely so I don't expect its maintenace
to be much effort. I'm also maintaining a complementary project
pam_tacplus, for which I'm also filing an ITP:

https://mentors.debian.net/package/libpam-tacplus/

#1024129#10
Date:
2023-06-28 21:01:31 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Pawel,

I'm also interested in having tacacs+ available in Debian. I wanted to test
your packages but unfortunately mentors removes packages after a while and
so they are gone from there now.

The git repo you linked to doesn't seem to contain debian packaging. Could
you re-upload to mentors or push your packaging/debian branch?

Thanks,
--Daniel

#1024129#15
Date:
2023-08-17 08:27:47 UTC
From:
To:
On 28/06/23 11:01 PM, Daniel Gröber wrote:

Hi,

I was also looking at this, Pawel any chance you could upload your
previous work somewhere?

There are multitude of issues with the current codebase and so far I'm
not sure whether all of them can be solved.

- latest Debian package had 4.0.4.27a from 2013
- latest official release is 4.0.4.28 from January 2015
- there is a 4.0.4.29a from March 2015 in the alpha/ directory of the
  upstream FTP server

There is at least one known fork of 4.0.4.28 from Facebook at
https://github.com/facebook/tac_plus . The project started good but
looks dead. There are however a few interesting open pull requests that
appear to fix errors on RHEL9, that should be sufficiently close to us.

The thing that lead to the removal from Debian was python2. Glancing at
the code I could not figure out the reason for the build-time
dependency. There is a python script installed in the tacacs+ binary
package (do_auth.py). Not everyone uses that. We don't, so I cannot
fully test it. But at first glance it appears to be able to be run on
python3 by just dropping the future imports. And there is an official
python3 port by it's original author at https://www.tacacs.org/

So I think using the Facebook fork with a few imported pull-requests and
maybe switching to the newer do_auth.py (in a seperate binary package
while we are at it) could do the trick.

Bernhard

#1024129#20
Date:
2023-08-17 08:50:53 UTC
From:
To:

Hi, sorry for late reply - I was travelling a lot during the holiday season.

Just checked my Debian development folder and I have source code for all
the mentioned tacacs+ upstream sources, from 27a to 29. Changes between
them were nominal and I found no issues building them for Debian. I only
have the Debian packaging files for 27a which I *think* was at some
point uploaded to the mentors website:

https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbYHstr4UT7v2JnpLNJZr1Xpu1HEu886CUdvQU3otpkhk?filename=tacacs+_4.0.4.27a-3.debian.tar.xz


All the related files I have - on a second thought I'm not sure why the
debian archive has 2016 modification date, maybe it's the original
archive from the times the package was still active?