hi,

I came across a script that finds missing *.so files, essentially working as revdep on source distros like CRUX and Gentoo:

https://gist.github.com/emmett1/eb71...d34ae59ba1fa57

Author is Emmett1, IIRC he used CRUX for a long time, then started Venom Linux.

For those running -current, that would be quite useful.

My guess is that many of us have invented similar wheels for use in house. The reason that few of these was released might be

1. There could be too many false positives and false negatives, e.g., when a program should be started by a script that modifies LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and, a program loads a library programmatically through dlopen(3), or simply depends on another program's output data, e.g., tar will not be able to expand a compressed archive without appropriate decompression program installed.
2. A package with broken dependency can still be useful, e.g., tar without lzip installed and KDE without NetworkManager (libnm.so).

well, I did not invent one, and such a tool was something I really miss on Slackware

The script writes to /tmp/list. Not a good idea if there are other users who can make a symbolic link /tmp/list.

should it have a more unique name?

Another one: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post6403575
And still another: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post6446468

1 members found this post helpful.

Yes. If another user makes a link

/tmp/list -> /var/spool/mail/victim

then the victim will lose their mail. Or, if the victim runs the script as root, nobody can log in after shadow has been written over:

/tmp/list -> /etc/shadow

1 members found this post helpful.

As I commented on Emmitt’s Reddit post, I rather like this script. Sure there’s many like it and some offer differing results, as with all of them, it’s up to the user to parse that info and find the data they need. As with all others, false-positives exist if you don’t have all the distro installed, or with things like Firefox, speech-dispatcher, etc.

As with any script though, you are free to change what it writes to suit your needs, I find it a odd complaint about what it writes… change it for you or use another option. Many exist.

3 members found this post helpful.

I am sorry if my comment offended you. I did not try to run the script, and I don't know what it outputs. I just pointed out a security vulnerability in its usage of a temporary file.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hey yeah i saw that using '/tmp/<file>' become big issue. I'm aware of that, it just that file is used randomly when i'm writing that script. I see no problem because that script is for my own use, until yesterday i decide to share it for other users in case that script can be a good use. But i forgot to fix and polish before share it.

I hope if there is more issue, someone could point me so i can fix it and the script can be a good use to other users who wanna use it.

The script is fixed, replaced '/tmp/list' to '$(mktemp)'. I also added 'trap' to remove that temporary file if 'Ctrl + C' is invoked.

https://gist.github.com/emmett1/eb71...fa57/revisions

3 members found this post helpful.

Hmm - That concern has been addressed in a recent revision.

Edit - Apologies to all. emmett1 was quicker.

2 members found this post helpful.

I really like your tool.

Any chance of making revdep also accept a single package as an input? So that it can also check only this one package, without going through all? Kinda like it works on CRUX.

How about packages installed in non-standard locations, e.g. /opt? Sure, on Slackware we do not have /etc/revdep.d/, but still...

Just add your extra desired dirs in the "SEARCH_DIRS" array, could make it as recursive as you'd like (likely at the expense of time) to add many other one-off directories to search.

1 members found this post helpful.

No offense taken, it just seemed trivial to change, and all the existing scripts that you linked write a file to /tmp as well, so it is a valid point. I always make sure the output of the others ends up in /root, as my /tmp is wiped on poweroff, but I'm sure that may be as unsafe a practice as well!

1 members found this post helpful.

They used mktemp.