Support PAM in PHP8

Hi Volker,

Hi all,

i've opened the tracker issue https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=80004
which requests Linux PAM (pluggable authentication modules) support in
PHP8. IMO PAM is an essential feature that is required by professional
applications. Sadly the PECL extension https://pecl.php.net/package/PAM
is not maintained anymore and can't be used in PHP7 without patching it.
I fear with PHP8 this will not be possible anymore.

Because of that i want to bring up this topic and start a discussion if
it is possible to integrate PAM support in the origin Git source tree,
so package maintainer (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, ...) can activate it simply
via build flag and ship this extension through their packages. By
integrating it into the origin source tree there is no need for a PECL
extension anymore, the benefit of this will be that the code is always
up-to-date and can be build out of the origin source.

What you'd need would be someone to step up and start maintaining it. If
it doesn't currently work that's one more reason not to bundle in core.

Cheers

Matteo Beccati

Development & Consulting - http://www.beccati.com/

On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 4:19 PM Volker Theile <
volker.theile@openmediavault.org> wrote:

Hi all,

i've opened the tracker issue https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=80004
which requests Linux PAM (pluggable authentication modules) support in
PHP8. IMO PAM is an essential feature that is required by professional
applications. Sadly the PECL extension https://pecl.php.net/package/PAM
is not maintained anymore and can't be used in PHP7 without patching it.
I fear with PHP8 this will not be possible anymore.

Because of that i want to bring up this topic and start a discussion if
it is possible to integrate PAM support in the origin Git source tree,
so package maintainer (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu, ...) can activate it simply
via build flag and ship this extension through their packages. By
integrating it into the origin source tree there is no need for a PECL
extension anymore, the benefit of this will be that the code is always
up-to-date and can be build out of the origin source.

The code needs to be maintained by someone to be up to date, putting it
into php-src will not magically solve that issue.

I don't think PAM has a chance of ever getting into php-src, even if the
PECL module is well maintained. It is just too specific, and the exact
reason that PECL exists. Do you see yourself taking over the maintainership
by any chance? apply the patches for PHP 7 compatibility and work on PHP 8?

Regards
Volker

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IMO PAM is an essential feature that is required by professional
applications. Sadly the PECL extensionhttps://pecl.php.net/package/PAM
is not maintained anymore and can't be used in PHP7 without patching it.

According to that PECL listing, the last release of that extension was
in 2009, when PHP 5.3 was the exciting new version.

I can think of a few explanations for there not being any releases in
that time:

• The functionality is as essential as you say, and PHP has been in
  terminal decline for the last 10 years.
• The functionality is actually available, but you're looking in the
  wrong place.
• There are not as many people as you think who need or want this
  functionality.

The third option seems the most likely.

That doesn't mean there's no hope of it being maintained, but it does
mean you need to try harder to track down other people who are
interested - as others have said, features don't become maintained
because of where they are in version control, they become maintained
because somebody puts in the effort to maintain them.

That means either you putting in that effort, or you persuading someone
else to; if nothing else works, you might be able to pay someone to do it.

Regards,

--
Rowan Tommins (né Collins)
[IMSoP]