From: Todd C. Miller <millert@openbsd.org>
Subject: Re: Document cap_mkdb command for login.conf.d
To: Stuart Henderson <stu@spacehopper.org>
Cc: Robert Nagy <robert@openbsd.org>, tech@openbsd.org
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2024 08:26:25 -0700

On Tue, 23 Jan 2024 09:34:04 +0000, Stuart Henderson wrote:

> I'd prefer that. The db files might have mattered 25 years ago on a busy
> system but they seem to be an anachronism now.
>
> But if we don't do that, then I'm ok with jmc's manpage diff.

There is no specific support for db files in login.conf, it just
use cgetent(3) and friends which support .db files as well as plain
text files.

The only file using cgetent(3) that really benefits from having a
.db version is termcap(5), due to its large size.  However, we
don't really use termcap.db anyway since the terminfo(5) files are
more capable.

So, do we want to drop support for .db files using cgetent(3)
entirely?  That seems a bit radical to me but it may be that there
is no real use case for it on a modern system.

 - todd