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@@ -0,0 +1,1810 @@ +man-db 2.12.0 (23 September 2023) +================================= + +Fixes: + + * Fix some manual page portability issues with groff 1.23.0. + * Fix test failures when a working `iconv` is not available. + * Ensure that timestamps read from the database can go past the year 2038, + even on systems where this is not the default. + * Fix `manpath` not parsing `PATH` entries with trailing slash correctly + for guessing `MANPATH` entries. + * More accurately document the behaviour of passing file names as arguments + to `man` without the `-l`/`--local-file` option. + * Avoid duplicate cleanup of old cat pages by both `man-db.service` and + `systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service`. + +Improvements: + + * Update system call lists in `seccomp` sandbox from `systemd`. + * Upgrade to Gnulib `stable-202307`. + * Work around the Firebuild accelerator in `seccomp` sandbox: if this is in + use then we need to allow some socket-related system calls. + * `man -K` now deduplicates search results that point to the same page. + * Warn if `mandb` drops to `--user-db` mode due to running as the wrong + user. + * Change section title recommendations in `man(1)` to mention `STANDARDS` + rather than `CONFORMING TO`, in line with `man-pages(7)`. + * Add a `STANDARDS` section to `man(1)` itself. + * Document that `man -K` may suffer from false negatives as well as false + positives. + * Take advantage of newer `groff` facilities to implement `man + --no-hyphenation` and `man --no-justification`, if available. + * `man -f` and `man -k` now pass any `-r`/`--regex` or `-w`/`--wildcard` + options on to `whatis` and `apropos` respectively. + * Always pass a line length to `nroff`, even if we believe that it matches + the default. + * Allow disabling `groff` warnings via `man --warnings`, by prefixing a + warning name with `!`. + +man-db 2.11.2 (8 January 2023) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix compile and test failures when `troff` is not `groff`. + * Fix segfault in typical uses of `man` when `nroff` is not installed. + * Fix crash in `mandb` when processing stray cats. + +Improvements: + + * Check for stray cats even if no manual pages in a given manpath were + changed. + +man-db 2.11.1 (15 November 2022) +================================ + +Build: + + * Transfer Git repository to https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db. + +Fixes: + + * SECURITY: Replace `$` characters in page names with `?` when constructing + `less` prompts. + * Silence error message when processing an empty manual page hierarchy with + a nonexistent cache directory. + * `man(1)` now sorts whatis references below real pages, even if the whatis + references are from a section with higher priority. + +Improvements: + + * Add section `3type` to the default section list just after `2`. This is + used by the Linux man-pages package. + * Recognize more Hungarian translations of the `NAME` section. + +man-db 2.11.0 (15 October 2022) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * `mandb` now correctly records filters in the database if it uses cached + whatis information. + * Upgrade Gnulib, fixing syntax error on glibc systems with GCC 11. + * The `CATWIDTH` configuration file directive now overrides `MINCATWIDTH` + and `MAXCATWIDTH`. + * Database entries for links were often incorrectly stored as if they were + entries for the ultimate source of the page. They are now stored with + the correct type. + * Store links in the database using the section and extension of the link + rather than of the ultimate source file. + * Consider pages for adding to the database even if they seem to already + exist; this performance optimization is no longer needed due to caching, + and it produced inconsistent results in some unusual cases. + * `man` now runs any required preprocessors in the same order that `groff` + does, rather than trusting the order of filters in a page's preprocessor + string. + * Fix building on MinGW. (I haven't been able to test this; help from + MinGW experts would be welcome.) + +Improvements: + + * Add more recognized case variants for localized versions of the `NAME` + section. + * Maintain multi keys in sorted order, improving database reproducibility. + * Pick a more consistent name for the target of a whatis entry in the + database. + * Extend rules for when to replace one database entry with another, + producing more stable behaviour. + * Fully reorganize databases after writing them, allowing the reproduction + of bitwise-identical databases regardless of scan order (at least with + GDBM). + +man-db 2.10.2 (17 March 2022) +============================= + +Build: + + * Regenerating man-db's build system now explicitly requires Automake >= + 1.14. (This was already the case since at least man-db 2.10.0, but was + previously undocumented.) + +Fixes: + + * Make `man -H` sleep for a few seconds after starting the browser, since + it may background itself before loading files (Dr. Werner Fink). + * If an override directory is configured using `--with-override-dir`, it is + now applied more consistently when building the manpath, and whether a + page was found in an override directory is considered when sorting + candidates for display (Mihail Konev). + +Improvements: + + * Make the man-db manual build reproducible. + * Add some hardening options to the `systemd` service. + * `configure` now has a `--with-snapdir` option, for use on systems where + `snapd` is configured to use a directory other than `/snap`. + +man-db 2.10.1 (10 February 2022) +================================ + +Fixes: + + * Fix occasional `mandb-symlink-target-timestamp` test failure. + * Fix inadvertent reliance on a GCC extension that caused build failures + with Clang. + * Fix building without `iconv`. + * Fix building on Cygwin. + +man-db 2.10.0 (4 February 2022) +=============================== + +Build: + + * Move Git repository to GitLab (https://gitlab.com/cjwatson/man-db). + * Building man-db now requires a C99 compiler. + * Building man-db now requires Autoconf >= 2.64. + +Fixes: + + * Manpath deduplication no longer mishandles the case where another entry + in the manpath is a suffix of a candidate path to append. + * Fix potential crash in path searching if `getcwd` fails for reasons other + than running out of memory. + * Fix crash in `globbing` test tool if run with no non-option arguments. + * `lexgrog` now produces output in the user's locale. + * Downgrade "malformed .lf request" warning to a debug message and rephrase + it somewhat, since `.lf` requests can use `*roff` arithmetic expressions + and we can't reasonably parse those. + * Avoid modifying the database without changing its mtime, which had been + possible since 2.7.0 if `mandb`'s purge phase found work to do but the + main phase didn't, and which confused some backup systems into reporting + possible filesystem corruption. + * `man` no longer inadvertently modifies the `MANSECT` environment variable + before passing it on to its subprocesses. + * `mandb` now stores the mtime of link targets as the mtime of their + corresponding database entries, rather than sometimes storing the mtime + of the link instead. + * Since man-db 2.4.2, `man` has behaved as if the `-l` option was given if + a manual page argument contains a slash. Since man-db 2.5.6, this has + interacted slightly poorly with the subpage feature, emitting spurious + error messages if given multiple manual page arguments some of which + include a slash. `man` no longer emits spurious error messages in this + case. + +Improvements: + + * Reduce overhead of `MAN_DISABLE_SECCOMP=1` compared to building without + `libseccomp`. + * Document `MAN_DISABLE_SECCOMP` and `PIPELINE_DEBUG` environment variables + in `man(1)`. + * Add `man-pages(7)` reference to `man(1)`. + * Recognize Arabic and Persian translations of the `NAME` section. + * Delay the `systemd` timer using `RandomizedDelaySec`, so that multiple + containers/VMs on the same host are less prone to running `mandb` all at + the same time. + * Significantly improve `mandb(8)` and `man -K` performance in the common + case where pages are of moderate size and compressed using `zlib`: `mandb + -c` goes from 344 seconds to 10 seconds on a test system. + +man-db 2.9.4 (8 February 2021) +============================== + +Improvements: + + * Recognise Romanian translations of the NAME section. + * Treat `\[en]` (etc.) as another synonym for `\-` in NAME sections, + alongside the existing `\(en` (etc.). + +Fixes: + + * Make the `seccomp` sandbox work better with libcs such as `musl` (S. + Gilles). + * Make the `seccomp` sandbox allow `clock_gettime64` as well as + `clock_gettime` (S. Gilles). + +man-db 2.9.3 (22 June 2020) +=========================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix manual page translation infrastructure to compare `po4a` versions + with more than two components correctly. + * Avoid incorrect markup in `man(1)` with `po4a >= 0.58`. + +man-db 2.9.2 (1 June 2020) +========================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix `man -X75-12` and `man -X100-12` to set the document font size (using + `-rS12`) as well as the device (using `-TX75-12` or `-TX100-12`). + * Fix incompatibility of `man -X` and friends with the `seccomp` sandbox. + +Improvements: + + * Add a bug tracker link to man-db's own manual pages. + * Add support for `zstd`-compressed manual pages, thanks to Bernhard + Rosenkränzer. + +man-db 2.9.1 (25 February 2020) +=============================== + +Improvements: + + * Drop `fdutimens` patch for GNU/Hurd; the bug it was working around was + fixed in glibc 2.28. + * Add `MANDB_MAP` entry mapping `/snap/man` to `/var/cache/man/snap`. + +man-db 2.9.0 (23 October 2019) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * `man --recode` and `manconv` now adjust encoding declarations on the + first line of their input to refer to the new encoding. + * Fix comparison of candidate manual pages to correctly handle the case + where the language elements are the same and match the locale, but the + territory elements differ. + +Improvements: + + * Many typographical improvements to man-db's own manual pages, largely + thanks to Bjarni Ingi Gislason. + * Rewrite parts of `man(1)` to make it a more accessible introduction. + * If run with no arguments or only a section, `man` now suggests running + `man man`. + * `man` now understands the `<page>(<section>)` form on its command line, + so for example `man 'chmod(2)'` is now the same as `man 2 chmod`. While + this requires more quoting, it may also be more convenient when copying + and pasting cross-references to manual pages. + * `manconv` now guesses the input encoding based on the file name if it is + not explicitly specified. + * There is a new `man-recode` program. It fulfils a purpose similar to + `man --recode`, but has an interface designed for bulk conversion and so + can be much faster when used on a large number of pages. + +Compatibility notes: + + * Remove the ability to undefine `COMP_SRC` at build-time to disable + reading compressed manual pages. This was always only a + micro-optimisation, and it wasn't worth the extra code complexity. You + can still configure without any compressors (either by not having them + available at build time, or by configuring with `--with-gzip=` etc.) to + achieve much the same practical effect, although the test suite still + requires at least `gunzip`. + +man-db 2.8.7 (26 August 2019) +============================= + +Fixes: + + * Further workarounds for ESET File Security: allow `sendmsg` when it is in + use. + * The `seccomp` sandbox now causes disallowed system calls to return + `EPERM` rather than raising `SIGSYS`, in the hope of being less + disruptive to preload hacks. + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow `getrandom`, used by Hardened Malloc. + * `man` no longer saves cat pages if `--no-hyphenation` or + `--no-justification` is used. + * Move decompression code out of `libman`. This should really fix a link + failure using the Darwin linker (unsuccessfully attempted in 2.8.6), and + possibly on other platforms too. + * Pass the database file name around in function parameters, rather than + storing it in a global variable with an unresolved symbol from + `libmandb`. Like the previous item, this fixes a link failure using the + Darwin linker, and possibly on other platforms too. + * Return database entries in sorted order when using NDBM. (This is based + on a similar fix to the GDBM backend in man-db 2.4.2.) + +Improvements: + + * Recognise Esperanto, Tamil, and Ukrainian translations of the `NAME` + section. + +man-db 2.8.6.1 (5 August 2019) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix missing memory copies in `ult_src` that caused segfaults in `mandb`. + +man-db 2.8.6 (3 August 2019) +============================ + +Fixes: + + * If more than one of `../man`, `man`, `../share/man`, and `share/man` + exist relative to a directory on `$PATH`, then all of them are now added + to the automatically-determined manpath; previously, only the first was + considered. + * Remove arbitrary limit on manpath size. + * The `systemd` database maintenance service now runs `mandb` with the + `--quiet` option, avoiding excess log messages. + * Default to `--without-systemdsystemunitdir` and + `--without-systemdtmpfilesdir` on non-Linux systems. + * Fix failure to link `libman` using the Darwin linker. + * `apropos -w` now works when given a non-lower-case pattern. + +Improvements: + + * Convert most list and hash table code to Gnulib's container types: these + are more flexible and normally more concise than home-grown equivalents. + * There is a new configure option `--disable-manual`, which causes the + man-db manual not to be built or installed. + +man-db 2.8.5 (5 January 2019) +============================= + +Build: + + * Building man-db now requires Autoconf >= 2.63 and Automake >= 1.11.2. + +Fixes: + + * Fix build with Berkeley DB. + * Fail to configure if `flex` is needed but missing. + * Fix the comment in the first line of the configuration file in the case + where `configure` was not given a `--with-config-file` option. + * Fix several resource and memory leaks. + * Fix handling of `\-` in the right-hand side of a `NAME` section. + * Work around Microsoft's proprietary "System Center Endpoint Protection" + antivirus program in the seccomp sandbox. + +Improvements: + + * Ship a `systemd` timer to perform daily database maintenance. + * Allow disabling the installation of the `systemd` `tmpfiles` snippet and + the `systemd` timer by configuring with `--with-systemdtmpfilesdir=no` + and `--with-systemdsystemunitdir=no` respectively. + +man-db 2.8.4 (27 July 2018) +=========================== + +Fixes: + + * Rely on decompressors reading from their standard input rather than + redundantly passing them the input file on their command line. This + works better with downstream AppArmor confinement of decompressors. + * Fix invalid syntax in `tmpfiles.d/man-db.conf` when configured with + `--disable-cache-owner`. + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow `sched_getaffinity`, sometimes used by `xz`. + * Check for `mandb_nfmt` and `mandb_tfmt` in the manual page hierarchy as + documented, not in the current directory. This was broken by the + working-directory-handling changes in 2.8.3. Note that this change means + that `man -l` will never use an external formatter (which was never + documented behaviour and was surely a bad idea). + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow some shared memory operations across the + board rather than just when ESET File Security is in use; the Astrill VPN + seems to require something similar, and there are doubtless other such + preload hacks. + * Some versions of ESET File Security call `msgget` and `msgsnd`; if this + program is in use, then allow those. + +man-db 2.8.3 (5 April 2018) +=========================== + +Fixes: + + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow `madvise`, since that's used by `lbzip2`. + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow `kill` and `tgkill` outright, since `groff` + uses `kill` to pass on signals to its child processes. + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow sibling architectures on + `x86`/`x86_64`/`x32`, since people sometimes mix and match architectures + there for performance reasons. + * Fix version check in locale macro loading to tolerate `groff` release + candidates. + * `man` now only changes working directory in child processes, so never + fails due to being unable to change back to its original working + directory. + * `accessdb`, `apropos`, and `lexgrog` no longer emit spurious `gettext` + headers in their `--help` output when localised. + +man-db 2.8.2 (28 February 2018) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow `kill` and `tgkill` when the signal is + directed at the current process or one of its threads; this is needed by + `xz`. + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow `ioctl(fd, TIOCGWINSZ)`, since that's used + by `musl`. + * Work around the proprietary "ESET File Security" antivirus program in + `seccomp` sandbox: if this is in use then we need to allow some + socket-related system calls. + * Work around the `snoopy` `execve()` wrapper and logger in `seccomp` + sandbox: if this is in use then we need to allow some socket-related + system calls. + * Interpret `EFAULT` from `seccomp_load` as meaning that `seccomp` is + unavailable, since this can be returned by some versions of `qemu-user`. + +man-db 2.8.1 (9 February 2018) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix `seccomp` sandbox build on Linux/POWER. + * Fix `manconv` execution under `seccomp` when `man` is installed setuid. + * Make `seccomp` sandbox allow `mremap` (used by `iconv`, for example). + +Improvements: + + * `configure` now has a `--without-libseccomp` option to disable the use of + `seccomp` even if the library is available. + +man-db 2.8.0 (4 February 2018) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix locale macro loading for Chinese to load the macro file corresponding + to just the language part of the user's locale. + * Honour `--enable-cache-owner` in generated `systemd` `tmpfiles` snippet + rather than hardcoding `man`. + * If `man` adds prefixes to a page to handle such things as disabling + hyphenation, then take account of those when looking for a preprocessor + line at the start of the page. + * Fix a segfault in `man -D --help`. + +Improvements: + + * Treat `\(en` as another synonym for `\-` in NAME sections. + * Confine most subprocesses that handle untrusted data using `seccomp`. + This mainly deals with subprocesses that perform encoding conversions, + (de)compressors, `groff` programs, and a few other odds and ends. + `groff` programs use a slightly more permissive filter since they need to + create temporary files, so additional path-based confinement (e.g. using + AppArmor) is still useful. + + If this goes wrong, then `MAN_DISABLE_SECCOMP=1` can be set in the + environment to disable it, but please report any such problem as a bug. + + * `man` now falls back to `cat` if the compile-time default pager is not + executable. + +man-db 2.7.6.1 (12 December 2016) +================================= + +Fixes: + + * Don't `chmod` `CACHEDIR.TAG` if it doesn't exist. + * Correct installation of Swedish manual pages. + +man-db 2.7.6 (11 December 2016) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix build warnings with Perl 5.22. + * Document that `man -K` searches page source, not rendered text. + * Fix a long-standing bug in man-db's internal cleanup stack mechanism: if + a cleanup function was pushed unexpectedly between a push/pop pair, then + popping the stack would remove the wrong cleanup function and chaos could + ensue. Avoid this by being more precise about which cleanup function + should be popped. + * SECURITY: Eliminate dangerous setgid-root directories. In the default + configuration, cache files and directories are now owned by `man:man` + rather than `man:root`; `man` and `mandb` are now setgid `man` as well as + setuid `man` (except in the `--disable-setuid` case). This is a much + simpler and safer solution to the original problem that caused my + predecessor to make directories setgid `root`, and doesn't introduce any + interesting new privilege since the `man` group's only real purpose is to + be the `man` user's primary group and nothing in cache directories is + group-writeable. + + Maintainers of distribution packages should take care to review their + installation rules in light of this change. + + As far as I know this has no CVE ID, but it is described + [here](https://www.halfdog.net/Security/2015/SetgidDirectoryPrivilegeEscalation/). + + * Fix manual page translation infrastructure to render tables correctly + with `po4a` 0.47. + +Improvements: + + * `man` now understands the `<page>.<section>` form on its command line, so + for example `man chmod.2` is now the same as `man 2 chmod`. (Contributed + by Mihail Konev.) + * The owner of cache files is now configured separately from whether `man` + and `mandb` are installed setuid, using the `--enable-cache-owner[=USER]` + option. + +man-db 2.7.5 (6 November 2015) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Adjust line number when inserting extra roff input. + * Disable roff input insertion with `--recode`. + * Build text manual with `LC_ALL=C`, to help reproducible builds. + +man-db 2.7.4 (8 October 2015) +============================= + +Fixes: + + * Fix crash when eliminating manpath duplicates if canonicalising a manpath + entry fails. + * Fix a build system bug that sometimes caused substitutions in manual + pages to be left unexpanded. + * `man` exits with status 3 rather than 0 if its formatting command exits + non-zero, even if its display command exits zero. + * `man` honours `MANWIDTH` in conjunction with the `-Z` option, to make it + easier to diagnose warnings in manual pages. + +man-db 2.7.3 (9 September 2015) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * Tools that consider the terminal line length now try the `TIOCGWINSZ` + ioctl on `/dev/tty` as well as standard input/output. + * `mandb` does a better job of coping with index files having incorrect + ownership. + * Squeeze blank lines internally rather than relying on the pager + supporting the `-s` option. + * Fix use-after-free in `ult_src`. + * Fix crash when running from a missing and unreadable current directory, + such as an orphaned subdirectory of `/proc`. + * Restore the ability to use `man -a` noninteractively. + +man-db 2.7.2 (16 August 2015) +============================= + +Fixes: + + * `man -k` and `man -f` now pass any provided `-l` option through to the + underlying `apropos`/`whatis` programs. + * `apropos` and `whatis` no longer truncate names if long output was + requested. + * The database handle is no longer stored in a global variable, fixing a + class of possible double-close bugs. + +man-db 2.7.1 (7 November 2014) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Various portability fixes for Solaris, contributed by Peter Bray. + * `man` now runs correctly when its current working directory has been + deleted. (As a result of this fix, man-db now requires `libpipeline >= + 1.4.0`.) + * `man -a` sends its prompts to `/dev/tty` rather than to `stderr`, and + likewise reads replies from `/dev/tty` rather than from `stdin`. + +man-db 2.7.0.2 (28 September 2014) +================================== + +Fixes: + + * Be more careful to avoid using or double-closing closed database handles. + Fixes test suite failures on some systems. + * Patch the `fdutimens` function imported from Gnulib to work around a + libc bug in GNU/Hurd. + +man-db 2.7.0.1 (24 September 2014) +================================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix test suite in the case where the system supports high-precision + timestamps but the file system containing the build directory does not. + +man-db 2.7.0 (22 September 2014) +================================ + +Upgrading from previous versions: + + * For the first time since version 2.4.0, the database format has changed + slightly, so you will need to run `mandb --create` after installing the + new version to rebuild your databases from scratch. (Distribution + packages should do this automatically for system databases.) + +Fixes: + + * `lexgrog` now filters terminal escape sequences out of cat pages before + trying to parse them. + * Tools that consider the terminal line length now prioritise the `COLUMNS` + environment variable above the `TIOCGWINSZ` ioctl. + * Manpath elements are no longer canonicalised before being inserted into + the search path; this caused the use of incorrect catpaths in some cases. + This was broken by the `LANGUAGE`-handling fixes in 2.5.4. + +Improvements: + + * Ship a `systemd` `tmpfiles` snippet to clean up old cat files after a + week. + * The modification time of manual databases is now simply stored in the + mtime of the database files themselves, rather than using a special row. + This makes databases reproducible between otherwise-identical + installations, as long as the underlying database has predictable + behaviour. As a bonus, man-db now uses high-precision timestamps to + determine whether it needs to update databases. + * Timestamps of manual pages are also now stored in the database with high + precision and compared accordingly. + * Files are now ordered by first physical extent before reading them, for + substantial performance improvements in operations such as `mandb` and + `man -K`. + * `man -H` shows a better error message if no browser is configured. + * `zsoelim` is now installed in `$pkglibexecdir`, to avoid clashes with + other packages. + +man-db 2.6.7.1 (10 April 2014) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Remove test suite dependency on `realpath(1)`. + +man-db 2.6.7 (10 April 2014) +============================ + +Fixes: + + * Fix a test failure when configured with `--enable-undoc`. + * Run the pager in `man`'s original working directory rather than in the + manual hierarchy. (As a result of this fix, man-db now requires + libpipeline >= 1.3.0.) + * `mandb` only creates a cache directory tag if the catpath is different + from the manpath, since it should only be created in directories that + consist entirely of cached information. + +man-db 2.6.6 (23 January 2014) +============================== + +man-db is now revision-controlled using git (https://git-scm.com/). See +`docs/HACKING` for the location of the repository. + +Fixes: + + * `apropos`'s `--and` option now works again; it was broken by the + optimisations in 2.6.2. + * Restore compatibility with Automake 1.10. + * Improve support for translation of common elements of help messages. + * Don't issue error messages when the database refers to a page that no + longer exists. + * Pass macro and hyphenation language tags to `groff` again (broken in + 2.6.5). + +Improvements: + + * `./configure --with-override-dir=OVERRIDE` arranges to look for manual + pages in `DIR/OVERRIDE` before each path element `DIR`. + +man-db 2.6.5 (27 June 2013) +=========================== + +Fixes: + + * `man`'s `--warnings` option works again on systems with versions of + `groff` that support it (broken in 2.6.4). + * `man` automatically falls back to `C.UTF-8` and then `en_US.UTF-8` if + trying to find a UTF-8 locale on a system without + `/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED`. + +man-db 2.6.4 (23 June 2013) +=========================== + +Fixes: + + * `man(1)` and `catman(8)` now document the default section list set at + configure time. + * Build fixes for Automake 1.13. + * man-db 2.6.0 arranged to search the full manpath when expanding `.so` + directives in manual pages (so that `.so name.1` works as well as `.so + man1/name.1`), but this incorrectly did not take effect for manual pages + that consist only of a `.so` directive. This is now fixed. + +Improvements: + + * The `MANLESS` environment variable is now treated as if it were a default + value for the `-r` option to `man`: occurrences of the text `$MAN_PN` are + expanded, and explicitly using the `-r` option overrides the default. + * The (unfortunately still hardcoded) maximum length for paths to manual + page hierarchies in the configuration file is now 511 characters rather + than 49. + * `MANPATH` entries now undergo `glob(7)`-style wildcard expansion, + allowing entries such as `/opt/*/man`. + +man-db 2.6.3 (17 September 2012) +================================ + +Fixes: + + * Build fixes for glibc 2.16 and Automake 1.12. + +man-db 2.6.2 (18 June 2012) +=========================== + +Fixes: + + * `apropos` prints an error message and returns non-zero when it finds no + matches. (Regression introduced in 2.5.1.) + * The presence of a 64-bit GDBM database on the manpath no longer causes a + 32-bit `man` process to exit with a fatal error. + +Improvements: + + * `apropos` is much faster when run with many arguments. + * `whatis` may be given the full path to an executable as an argument, in + which case it will look up the base name of that executable in the + appropriate parts of the manpath. + +man-db 2.6.1 (14 February 2012) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * `--with-db=db*` and `--with-db=ndbm` compile again. + * Translated manual pages are no longer displayed starting with a spurious + blank line. + * `straycats` tries to ensure that `col` is invoked with `LC_CTYPE` set to + a UTF-8 locale. + * Fix double-free in `mandb` when encountering a symlink outside the manual + hierarchy, thanks to Peter Schiffer. + +Improvements: + + * `mandb` creates a cache directory tag, per the [Cache Directory Tagging + Standard](http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/). + * Add support for Lzip-compressed manual pages, thanks to Matias A. Fonzo. + * Running `man -w` (with a new `--path` alias) without a name now prints + the manpath, for compatibility with other `man` implementations. The + `vim` viewdoc plugin makes use of this. + +man-db 2.6.0.2 (13 April 2011) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix a segfault when scanning links to empty pages. + * Once we've seen at least one record in a page's `NAME` section, ignore + any further records that don't include a `whatis` description, as they + tend to be noise. + +man-db 2.6.0.1 (10 April 2011) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * Ensure that the target of a symlink or `.so` chain is always recorded as + a real page. + * Read a user-specified configuration file even if `HOME` is unset. + +man-db 2.6.0 (9 April 2011) +=========================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix build with versions of GNU `ld` that default to + `--no-copy-dt-needed-entries`. + * Fix failure to display manual pages in some encodings when installed + setuid. + * Wrap long table cells in `man(1)`, fixing test failures with `groff` + 1.21. + * If an explicit section is passed to `man`, then pages that match that + section exactly will be preferred over pages that only have that section + as a prefix. + * Fix a segfault when `man -K` tries to display certain pages. + * Fix a segfault in some situations when processes are killed by `SIGHUP`, + `SIGINT`, or `SIGTERM`. + +Improvements: + + * As promised in the release notes for man-db 2.5.8, man-db no longer ships + its own copy of + [libpipeline](https://libpipeline.gitlab.io/libpipeline/). You must + build and install that library separately. + * Search the full manpath when expanding `.so` directives in manual pages. + As part of this, `.so name.1` should now work as well as `.so + man1/name.1`. + * `lexgrog` handles roff named glyphs and `perldoc` strings in `NAME` + sections. + * `man` no longer starts a pager if standard output is not a tty. + * The `-s` option to `whatis` and `apropos` now takes a colon- or + comma-separated list of sections, similar to `man -S`. + * `mandb` error output is neater when `stderr` is not a terminal. + * Add basic support for the implementation of `nroff`/`troff` in the + Heirloom Documentation Tools. Title lengths are not properly set as yet, + and many features are untested. + * `mandb` removes `cat*` and NLS subdirectories of `cat` directories whose + corresponding `man` directories no longer exist. + * `mandb` forces `SIGPIPE` back to its default disposition on startup, to + avoid noisy output in case it was started in a context where `SIGPIPE` + was ignored. + * `SECTION` entries in a user configuration file now override those in the + system configuration file, rather than appending to them. + * The default `less` prompt now includes "(press h for help or q to quit)" + to help novices find their way around. + * man-db may now be built to use Berkeley DB version 5 (`--with-db=db5`). + +man-db 2.5.9 (17 November 2010) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix test failures on some systems. A change made in 2.5.8 was overly + sensitive to directory ordering. + * Configuring with `--disable-nls` works again. + +man-db 2.5.8 (15 November 2010) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * Fix assertion failure on `man -l` with an uncompressed page and any of + `--no-hyphenation`, `--no-justification`, or a non-English page. + * 2.5.7 introduced a regression when running `catman` in some locales, most + notably in the C locale: while converting the output to UTF-8, `iconv` + was run after the compressor rather than before it. This release fixes + that. + +Improvements: + + * Add support for XZ-compressed manual pages, thanks to Darren Salt. + * Try underscore-separated subpages as well as hyphen-separated ones, + thanks to Tanguy Ortolo. + * Build `libman` and `libmandb` as shared libraries, reducing installed + footprint by about 200K (at least on GNU/Linux). + * `libintl` is no longer shipped with man-db. If your system does not + already have GNU `libintl` installed and you want man-db's messages to be + translated, then please install [GNU + libintl](https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/) separately. + * Warnings about unrecognised locales are now suppressed if the + `DPKG_RUNNING_VERSION` environment variable is set (i.e. man-db is + running within a Debian package's maintainer script), since the system + locales are often out of sync with the C library in that context. Thanks + to the Debian Perl maintainers for the idea. + * Allow building with an external + [libpipeline](https://libpipeline.gitlab.io/libpipeline/), which has been + split out from man-db. This is a transitional measure: a future version + of man-db will stop shipping its own copy of `libpipeline`. + * `mandb` should no longer repeatedly rescan manual page hierarchies when a + `whatis` entry turns into a broken link. + +man-db 2.5.7 (16 February 2010) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * If a subprocess exits before `man` manages to read all the output from + it, it now drains the output file descriptor rather than immediately + discarding it. + * If `/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED` is available, `man` attempts to use it to + ensure that `LC_CTYPE` is set to an appropriate locale for the selected + character set when invoking `col`. This fixes `LANG=C man -E UTF-8`, as + used by lintian. + * Don't run tests if cross-compiling. + * Fix possible `mandb` crash when `MAN_MUST_CREATE` is unset. + +Improvements: + + * `man` can now tell `nroff` to disable justification if the + `--no-justification` option is used. + * If the full path to an executable is given as an argument, `man` will try + looking up the corresponding manual page in the appropriate part of the + manpath, rather than just trying to format the text of the executable as + a manual page. + * In the GNU manual hierarchy layout, search `man<sec><ext>` directories as + well as just `man<sec>` (e.g. `/usr/share/man/man3p` as well as + `/usr/share/man/man3`). + * By request, `man` now prefers getting a page from the best manual section + over getting a page in the correct language. + * All programs now support a `MAN_DEBUG` environment variable which can be + used in place of the `-d`/`--debug` option. This is useful in some + situations where a program is being called deep in a process tree. + * man-db now builds with heirloom-doctools, thanks to Diego Pettenò of + Gentoo. + * Add support for emulating `pipe()` with `socketpair()`, which is faster + on some systems; thanks to Werner Fink of SUSE. + * Cat pages are now always saved in UTF-8, and converted to the proper + encoding at display time, which means that cat pages can now be saved + regardless of locale. Note that a consequence of this is that cat pages + now include formatting information (e.g. overstriking) and need to be + run through `col(1)` before display. + +man-db 2.5.6 (26 August 2009) +============================= + +Fixes: + + * Exact-section database lookups were incorrectly returning all database + entries whose section names were prefixes of the requested section name. + In some cases this could confuse `mandb` into never believing that the + database was up to date. + * Fix handling of pages with comma-separated names ("foo, bar, baz") in + their `NAME` sections, broken by a change in 2.5.0 (!) to ignore manual + page names containing spaces. + * Fixed a buffer overflow in the pipeline library's line-reading functions. + I don't believe this to be exploitable: at worst we might believe that + there's some garbage at the end of manual pages (whose contents are + untrusted anyway) and this bug typically resulted in a failed assertion + the next time anything tried to read a line. + * Plugged two substantial memory leaks in the pipeline library. + * `whatis` and `apropos` only display any given manual page, or pointers to + it, once. + * `man` now sets `less(1)`'s environment up correctly for manual pages + encoded in CP1251. + * `manconv` no longer confuses situations such as "this UTF-8 character is + not representable in the target encoding" with "this text is not in + UTF-8". + +Improvements: + + * The default configuration file now includes section 0, used on some + systems to document C library header files. + * `make check` now passes in the presence of a UTF-8-aware `col`, such as + that in util-linux-ng. + * The `man -K` option is now supported to search the full text of all + manual pages. This was inspired by a similar option in the other `man` + package (currently at version 1.6f) currently maintained by Federico + Lucifredi and formerly by Andries Brouwer, but I took advantage of + man-db's pipeline library to implement it entirely in-process, without + having to start a separate `grep` process for every manual page. In my + tests with fairly typical searches across variously all manual pages or + just one section, man-db's implementation ran between 3 and 10 times + faster. + * Database directories are now only created when there are corresponding + manual page directories, not just because they're mentioned in the + configuration file. + * By default, `man` will now try to interpret pairs of manual page names + given on the command line as equivalent to a single manual page name + containing a hyphen (e.g. `man foo bar` => `foo-bar(1)`). This supports + the common pattern of programs that implement a number of subcommands, + allowing them to provide manual pages for each that can be accessed using + similar syntax as would be used to invoke the subcommands themselves. + Suggested by H. Peter Anvin, Federico Lucifredi, and others on the git + mailing list. + * The build process is now quieter by default. Use `./configure + --disable-silent-rules` or `make V=0` if you don't like this or your + `make(1)` doesn't support the non-standard extension required. + * `make install` now installs the manual. + * `manconv` understands a wider range of Emacs-style coding tags. + * Recommendations to change `MAN_DB_CREATES`, `MAN_DB_UPDATES`, and + `MAN_CATS` `#define` options in `manconfig.h` have been replaced by new + `configure` options `--enable-automatic-create`, + `--disable-automatic-update`, and `--disable-cats` respectively. Note + that automatic user database creation is now off by default, as it is + often too slow for the usefulness it adds; use + `--enable-automatic-create` to enable it. + +man-db 2.5.5 (14 March 2009) +============================ + +Fixes: + + * Pages that declare a non-default encoding in their preprocessor lines are + now handled correctly. + * Fix an uninitialised variable when sorting manual page candidates that + could lead to excessive memory allocation and possible crashes. + +Improvements: + + * man-db's `make check` now tests that all its own manual pages format + without errors or warnings from `groff`, to ensure a better-quality + release. + +man-db 2.5.4 (24 February 2009) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * Build fixes for systems without GNU Make, and for systems without + `gettext`; this successfully covers at least FreeBSD. + * The `distclean` target now works if `po4a` isn't installed. + * Exit as soon as possible if database writes return `ENOSPC`. + * `lexgrog` now stops on any unrecognised roff request, rather than + continuing and often littering the database with garbage. + * `man` no longer requires both standard input and standard output to be + terminals in order to use the terminal line length. The line length from + standard output is preferred if available. + * The manpath was built completely wrongly when multiple entries were + present in `LANGUAGE`: duplicates were handled strangely, and languages + were effectively iterated in reverse order. It should be rather more + sensible now. + +Improvements: + + * The `MAN_KEEP_STDERR` environment variable can now be used to override + `man`'s default of discarding `stderr` when `stdout` is a terminal. + * Handling of terminal widths for cat pages is now configurable, using the + `MINCATWIDTH`, `MAXCATWIDTH`, and `CATWIDTH` configuration file + directives. + * `man -a` now detects duplicate manual page candidates more reliably, and + sorts them better. + * Belarusian, Estonian, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Romanian, + Slovenian, and Ukrainian pages are now supported. + * `man` can now search for pages using regular expressions (with `--regex`) + or shell wildcards (with `--wildcard`). By default this searches both + page names and descriptions, like `apropos`, but if the `--names-only` + option is used then it searches page names only, like `whatis`. + * `man` can now tell `nroff` to disable hyphenation if the + `--no-hyphenation` option is used. + * man-db already searched for manual pages in `../man` and `man` + directories relative to each `$PATH` component; it now searches in + `../share/man` and `share/man` directories too. + * Groff 1.20 was recently released, including the `preconv` preprocessor. + Although man-db has supported `preconv` to some extent since 2.4.4, + man-db's `configure` now detects its presence and infers that `groff` + supports Unicode input using it; `man` also now takes slightly better + advantage of `preconv` than before. + * Per-locale `groff` macros are now loaded if possible, allowing us to take + advantage of such things as localised versions of predefined strings and + language-aware hyphenation. This only works with Groff 1.20.2 or better + (not yet released), since earlier versions did not allow us to suppress + warnings in the event that the appropriate macro file is not available. + +man-db 2.5.3 (17 November 2008) +=============================== + +Fixes: + + * Cleaned up a number of possible crashes, memory leaks, and missing error + checks found by the Coverity Scan project. + * Fix build if `MAN_CATS` is undefined. + * If the `LINGUAS` environment variable is set while running `configure`, + it now controls building and installation of localised manual pages as + well as program translations. + * The `LANGUAGE` environment variable is now tokenised properly, rather + than only taking the first two characters of each element. + * Fix build if `--disable-nls` is used or `iconv` is not available. + * `man` now correctly propagates the exit code of `whatis` or `apropos` + when called with the `-f` or `-k` option respectively. + +Improvements: + + * A number of inconsistencies and readability problems with man-db's own + manual pages have been cleaned up, thanks mainly to Yuri Kozlov. + * Reduce the number of warnings emitted when using an unrecognised locale. + * `manconv` and `zsoelim` are now called internally rather than by + executing external programs, to improve performance. + * man-db now uses GDBM (`--with-db=gdbm`) in preference to Berkeley DB + (`--with-db=db` or `--with-db=dbN` where `N` is 1, 2, 3, or 4) by + default, since hardware improvements have rendered Berkeley DB's speed + advantages negligible for our purposes and the relatively frequent + `SONAME` and on-disk format changes are not worth the hassle. + Distributors should note that if they follow this change then they will + need to arrange for databases to be rebuilt on upgrade to this version. + * Manual pages may now be compressed with LZMA (although this is probably + only worth it for very large pages). + * Duplicate manual page hierarchies due to symlinks (e.g. `/usr/man` -> + `/usr/share/man`) are detected and removed from the search order. + * A locale modifier (e.g. `@latin`) in a directory name must now match the + locale if the former is set, in addition to the language and territory. + * Bare `.so` includes (e.g. `.so foo.1` rather than `.so man1/foo.1`) now + work, although only within the same manual page hierarchy for now. + +man-db 2.5.2 (5 May 2008) +========================= + +Fixes: + + * `man -H` (without a browser argument) was completely broken in 2.5.1 and + is now fixed. + * `man` no longer breaks in Japanese locales when using `less` as a pager. + +Improvements: + + * The `--encoding` option to `man` can now take a true character encoding + rather than a `*roff` device; the latter was an unreliable, inflexible, + and awkward way to select an output encoding. The old semantics are + still supported for backward compatibility. + * Whatis parsing stops at `.ie` or `.if` conditionals. + * CJK locale specifications where the codeset component is equivalent to + but not stringwise-identical to UTF-8 (e.g. `zh_CN.utf8`) are handled + better. + * `man(1)`'s `OPTIONS` section is ordered more comprehensibly. + * `apropos`, `lexgrog`, `man`, `mandb`, and `whatis` ignore encoding + conversion errors for the last possible encoding of the source page. + This helps, for example, with pages including misencoded non-ASCII names + of authors; it usually seems better to allow these pages to pass with + small errors than to break them entirely. + +man-db 2.5.1 (28 January 2008) +============================== + +Fixes: + + * The manual is now built automatically, avoiding some ordering problems on + `make distclean`. + * Manual pages are converted to the proper input encoding for `troff` + output as well as `nroff` output. + * The `-t`, `-T`, `-X`, and `-Z` options to `man` work again; in 2.5.0, + they read input from `stdin` rather than from the manual page. + * `apropos` and `whatis` no longer segfault when given an explicit locale + using `-L`. + * `man` now understands that `groff`'s `ascii` device takes ASCII input, + not ISO-8859-1. + * `man` no longer discards `stderr` when writing to a file or a pipe; this + was broken by an overenthusiastic change in 2.5.0. + * `manconv` now falls back to the next encoding in its list if any + characters in an entire 64KB block fail to decode using the current + encoding, as was originally intended. + * `manconv` is more careful about extracting `coding:` directives from + manual pages. + * Ctrl-C and Ctrl-\ now work again at the prompt issued by `man -a`. + +Improvements: + + * There is a new `--with-sections` `configure` option to change the default + value of `SECTION` in the configuration file. + * Automake is now used to generate Makefiles. Among other things, this + fixes `VPATH` builds and some bugs in dependency generation, and should + allow building with non-GNU versions of make. + * man-db now uses the Gnulib portability library, allowing the removal of + earlier haphazard portability code. While this results in a somewhat + larger source distribution, it makes man-db easier to maintain and should + make it easier to build on systems to which the maintainer does not have + access. + * In the process of switching to Gnulib, the last vestiges of pre-C89 + support have been removed; they were documented to be broken anyway. + * If the `MANROFFOPT` environment variable is set, `man` now appends its + value to the `*roff` command line. + * `man` now accepts a `--recode` option to output a source manual page + converted to a specified encoding. + * For compatibility with System V, `man` accepts `-s` as an alias for `-S`, + and permits sections to be comma-separated as well as colon-separated. + * All programs, except the obsolete `wrapper`, now accept a `--debug` + option. (`accessdb`, `lexgrog`, and `zsoelim` were lacking it.) + * `man` now accepts a `--warnings` option to enable `groff` warnings. + +man-db 2.5.0 (7 October 2007) +============================= + +Fixes: + + * `mandb --quiet` now suppresses several more warnings. + * The output of `apropos` no longer includes duplicates when multiple + search terms are used. + +Improvements: + + * Databases are now created for non-English manual hierarchies. All + database entries should be encoded in UTF-8; man-db converts from the + character set of the manual hierarchy and to the character set specified + in the user's locale as necessary. + * Per-locale directory handling has been improved. Directories such as + `fr.UTF-8` may be used for occasions when it is appropriate to specify + the character set but not the country, and so a full locale name is + inconvenient. + * There is a new `manconv` program which can try multiple possible + encodings for a file, thus allowing UTF-8 manual pages to be installed in + any directory even without an explicit encoding declaration. + * A decompression library is now in place. This allows man-db to use + `zlib` to decompress gzipped files, and allows most of its uses of + temporary files to be removed. The only remaining exceptions are cat + file creation (which uses a temporary file in the cat tree rather than in + `/tmp`) and viewing HTML manual pages (which uses a temporary directory). + Otherwise, man-db should now work fine even with a read-only `/tmp` + during system recovery. + * Cat pages are now saved in the background while the pager is active, so + `man` will only need to block afterwards if the pager is exited very + quickly. + * `--with-*` options are now available at `configure` time for most of the + auxiliary program locations that you might want to override. + * `man` now supports the `MANPAGER` environment variable, overriding + `PAGER`. + * `apropos`/`whatis` output is now truncated to the terminal width by + default. As with `man`, this may be overridden using the `MANWIDTH` + environment variable. + * `lexgrog` now ignores alleged manual page names containing spaces, as + these usually indicate parsing errors or ill-formed `NAME` sections and + they clutter up `apropos` output badly. I'm only aware of one legitimate + counterexample, the Intercal compiler "oo, ick", which no longer appears + to be known by that name anyway; let me know if there are any others. + * `man` now discards `stderr` from formatting subprocesses when outputting + to a pager, to avoid visual corruption from any error messages. + * If the `MAN_KEEP_FORMATTING` environment variable is set to any non-empty + value, then `man` will preserve formatting characters in its output even + when standard output is not a terminal. This may be useful for programs + such as `pinfo` that call `man` and can interpret its formatted output. + * Setting `NOCACHE` in the configuration file now prevents `man` from ever + creating cat pages automatically. + * `apropos` now accepts the `--and` option to display only items that match + all the supplied keywords. + +man-db 2.4.4 (12 February 2007) +=============================== + +man-db is now revision-controlled using +[bzr](https://bazaar.canonical.com/). See `docs/HACKING` for the location +of the archive (including all CVS history, imported by Canonical). + +Fixes: + + * SECURITY: Fix a buffer overrun if using `-H` and the designated web + browser (argument to `-H` or `$BROWSER`) contains multiple `%s` + expansions. This is CVE-2006-4250. + * Ignore `SIGINT` and `SIGQUIT` while running subprocesses, so that typing + Ctrl-C doesn't kill `less` (broken in 2.4.3). + * Similarly, ignore `SIGPIPE` in subprocesses. + * Various fixes to `SIGCHLD` handling in pipeline library, preventing + "waitpid failed: No child processes" errors. + * Skip `exec` in configuration file commands (perhaps left over from old + installations), which the pipeline execution library cannot handle + directly. + +Improvements: + + * Add support for Chinese in the `--enable-mb-groff` case. + * `lexgrog` now handles pages with multiple descriptions more usefully, by + displaying one description per output line. + +man-db 2.4.3 (3 July 2005) +========================== + +Fixes: + + * Avoid problems creating databases on systems with badly broken clocks set + before the Unix epoch. + * Fix detection of decompression programs, so that `man` doesn't attempt to + execute man pages when it doesn't have a corresponding decompression + program. + +Improvements: + + * `apropos` and `whatis` now accept a `--section` option to restrict their + search to a particular manual section. + * The pipeline execution library is now used for most calls to external + programs, avoiding use of the shell. + * When `stdout` is not a terminal, man pages will be formatted in plain + text without the use of backspace or ANSI formatting characters. + * When invoking `apropos` (`man -k`) or `whatis` (`man -f`) as external + programs, `man` now only passes through command-line options understood + by the respective programs. + * Improve handling of locales with versions and/or modifiers. + * Add support for Croatian, Galician, Indonesian, Slovak, and Turkish + pages. + * man-db may now be built to use Berkeley DB version 4 (`--with-db=db4`). + +Compatibility notes: + + * Setting the line length of manual pages now requires `groff` 1.18 or + later. + +man-db 2.4.2 (20 September 2003) +================================ + +Fixes: + + * SECURITY: Fix a number of buffer overruns in configuration file handling, + ultimate source location, and `MANPATH` processing. This is CVE + CAN-2003-0620. + * SECURITY: Restrict the use of the `DEFINE` directive in `~/.manpath` to + code running with dropped privilege. Previously, the `compressor` + variable could be used to run arbitrary code with raised privilege. This + is CVE CAN-2003-0645. + * Make sure to initialize `mandata` structures to zero. The uses of + uninitialized memory resulting from this had been leading to random + segfaults. + * Drop privileges in order to be able to read pages in non-world-readable + user manpaths while setuid. + * `man` can be built with `--disable-setuid` again. + * `man`'s locale support has been revamped. The encoding of source manual + pages is no longer related to the encoding of the input passed to `*roff` + or to `*roff`'s terminal output device. These frequently differ, + especially in UTF-8 locales but in other circumstances as well, and a + "just send 8-bit data" approach is no longer adequate. If you are using + a version of `groff` with the Debian multibyte patch applied, pass the + `--enable-mb-groff` option to configure. + * When using GDBM, `accessdb` and `apropos` did not return database entries + in sorted order, since GDBM's key traversal interface is not + lexicographically ordered. The database layer has been corrected to cope + with this. + * Directories found in strange places in manual hierarchies don't crash + `mandb`. + +Improvements: + + * `man` now calls `mandb` to update databases rather than doing it itself. + This leaves cat pages as the sole remaining reason for `man` to be + setuid. + * The "undocumented" message is only displayed if a corresponding + executable is found on the `$PATH`. + * All programs that read `~/.manpath` now take a `-C` option to cause them + to read a different user configuration file instead. + * The `--enable-debug` option to `configure` has been removed. man-db's + `Makefile`s now always calculate full dependencies for C files. + * `mandb` caches the contents of directories, significantly speeding up the + purging of obsolete entries. + * `mandb` now knows how to purge database entries corresponding to removed + stray cat pages. + * In addition, a pipeline execution library has been written, which will + make it possible to eliminate all or almost all use of the shell in a + future release. Unfortunately, time pressures due to the security issues + above meant that the pipeline library was not well enough tested for use + in this release, so it is present but unused. That will be the first + item for 2.4.3. + +man-db 2.4.1 (22 December 2002) +=============================== + +The man-db CVS repository has moved from sourceforge.net to +savannah.nongnu.org. + +Fixes: + + * Don't enter an infinite loop when the `SYSTEM` environment variable is + set. + * `man` doesn't segfault when trying to follow a broken symlink. + * `mandb` no longer corrupts databases when deleting entries that are part + of multi keys. + * Prevent a possible buffer overflow when encountering large multi keys. + * Man page names are escaped when globbing, so `[(1)` can now be found even + if the database is not up to date. + * Correct an `access()` check that led to `man -X -l -` producing no + output. + * `lexgrog` can now cope with man pages containing only a `.so` link. + * Manual hierarchies with a specific encoding are put into the search path + in the correct order. A bug in `$LANGUAGE` handling had formerly meant + that `de` would take precedence over `de_DE.UTF-8`. + +Improvements: + + * `man`'s behaviour when searching for page names that begin with a digit + has been made more intuitive, as has its treatment of section names that + are extensions of ones mentioned in the configuration file but are not + themselves explicitly named as sections. + * The default line length for pages formatted for terminal output has been + increased (reducing margin size) to match the default in `groff` 1.18. + * Proofread the manual. + * The `-w` flag to `man` has been changed to display the name of only the + source `nroff` file. A `-W` flag has been introduced which displays the + name of the cat file as well. If both flags are given to `man`, it will + behave as before. + * If `bzip2` is installed, pages compressed with `bzip2` can now be + displayed. + * Add support for displaying an additional message when no man page is + found, which can be used to direct users to a generic "undocumented" + page. + * The manual hierarchy layout will now be guessed where possible if an + explicit `--enable-mandirs` argument is not passed to `configure`. + +man-db 2.4.0 (26 June 2002) +=========================== + +I have changed the package name to man-db, as the underscore was awkward. + +Upgrading from version 2.3.x: + + * The database format has changed slightly, so you will need to run `mandb + --create` after installing the new version to rebuild your databases from + scratch. (Distribution packages should do this automatically for system + databases.) + +Fixes: + + * The GNU `nroff` test in `configure` now works when `/bin/sh` is `ash`. + * When scanning pages for `NAME` sections, `lexgrog` and `mandb` no longer + accidentally eat the line after each occurrence of the no-op request `.`. + * `man --local` drops privileges throughout to avoid problems with + non-world-readable home directories. + * Newly created cat directories are `chown`ed to the `man` user when + running as root. + * `man --html` no longer creates its temporary file with raised privileges, + so that it now works with a setuid `man`. + * `man` detects preprocessors correctly when setuid. + * Various segfault fixes: explicitly null-terminate data returned by the + Berkeley DB library to avoid some rare crashes; don't reuse a freed + pointer in some cases of pages with multiple names; handle `MANPATH`s + containing `::` more safely. + * Correctly parse manual pages using DOS line-ending conventions. + * Work around a misfeature in Berkeley DB: it pauses for several seconds if + asked to read a zero-length database, on the assumption that somebody is + still writing the metadata page. `man` is generally better off just + ignoring the database in this case. + * Work around corrupted databases in the case where the `nextkey` pointer + chain contains a loop. + +Improvements: + + * `man` looks in the filesystem followed by the database, rather than the + other way round. Unix filesystems are quite good databases for this + purpose, and the `man` database is only superior when looking up names + that don't have associated links in the filesystem. + * `apropos --wildcard --exact` makes sure wildcards match an entire + description or page name, unlike `apropos --wildcard` which may match on + word boundaries too. + * `man`'s page-searching code has been substantially rearranged, and now + only starts displaying pages when it has finished searching for + candidates. This allows pages to be sorted more sensibly. + * Manual pages are formatted in UTF-8 if that is the current locale's + character set. The `-E` option is now available to force a particular + encoding. Note that some versions of (e.g.) `less` have problems + displaying UTF-8 in conjunction with backspace characters; `groff` 1.18 + should alleviate this by using ANSI colour escapes instead. + * The `less` prompt string sets `-PM` as well as `-Pm`. + * Invoking `man` from within `less` now sets the correct page title in the + inner `less`. + * Unless the `--match-case` option is used, `man` will search for pages + case-insensitively. + * Update the mechanism for setting the line length so that it also works + with `groff` 1.18. + * The `-R` switch is added to the `less` prompt string, which is needed to + display the ANSI colour escapes generated by `groff` 1.18 correctly. + * The `$MANLESS` environment variable may be used to override the normal + creation of the `less` prompt string. + * Translation updates for French, German, and Spanish, and a new Catalan + translation. See `man/THANKS`. + +man\_db-2.3.20 (7 September 2001) +================================= + +Fixes: + + * A typo in 2.3.19 caused character sets for many languages to be detected + incorrectly. This especially affected multibyte languages. + * Long options in the environment variable `LESS` are handled correctly. + * When checking if cat pages need to be updated, check for different + timestamps rather than whether the cat page is newer, as otherwise we + were confused by tools like `tar` that preserve timestamps in their + archives. Each cat page is now set to have the same mtime as its + corresponding man page. + * Look up the correct character set each time a page is displayed rather + than just the first time, in case pages in several different character + sets are viewed in a single session. + * `groff` requests are no longer assumed to be case-insensitive when + scanning for preprocessors, so for example `mdoc`'s `.Eq` request isn't + mistaken for the `.EQ` which introduces `eqn` commands. + * Escape arguments passed to the shell that might contain dangerous + characters. + * Avoid an infinite loop if the `LANGUAGE` environment variable is set but + empty. + * The `--create` option to `mandb` now implies `--no-purge`. + * Temporary files are handled with more secure permissions. + +Improvements: + + * Use a variant of `mkstemp()` rather than `tempnam()`, to avoid classic + race conditions. (I don't believe the races were usefully exploitable.) + * Tolerate `whatis` entries in a database that point to themselves. + * Detect more translations of the `NAME` section. + * Add examples of man pages written in POD and SGML. + * `lexgrog` is now installed in `/usr/bin` by default, with proper argument + parsing, an improved output format, and a man page. It is expected to be + used by programs that need to validate man pages. + * The `-H` (`--html`) option to `man` is now compiled in by default, and + supports the BROWSER specification (as + [documented](http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/BROWSER/) and + [amended](https://www.dwheeler.com/browse/secure_browser.html)). + +man\_db-2.3.19 (5 July 2001) +============================ + +Fixes: + + * The user configuration file `~/.manpath` is no longer trusted when + deciding whether to drop privileges. In the process, user cat directory + handling has been improved. + * Commands of the form `man -S "" foo` formerly emptied the list of + acceptable sections and then searched the database anyway, and commands + of the form `man -S ::: foo` segfaulted. Both now use the standard list + of sections. + * The `HUP` and `TERM` signals are now handled better. + * `straycats` processing invokes `col -bx` rather than `col-bx`. + * The `root` user is now correctly allowed to update databases in system + manpaths. + * `apropos` and `whatis` no longer enter infinite recursion if a database + contains an entry pointing to itself. + +Improvements: + + * When compiled with `--enable-setuid`, `man` and `mandb` can be installed + non-setuid. In this mode, they will be unable to write cat pages in + system directories or to modify system databases, but will otherwise + operate correctly. This allows a single binary package to support setuid + and non-setuid modes of operation. + * The ordering of manual sections is read from `SECTION` directives in the + configuration file rather than being hard-coded. + * The `MANDB_MAP` configuration file directive is documented more clearly. + * Multiple `whatis` entries separated by commas, break requests, and/or + paragraph requests are handled more intelligently. + * Fill control requests (`.nf` and `.fi`) cause `lexgrog` to assume a break + at each newline. + * Duplicate manpath entries (often generated in the course of national + language support) are removed, so that `man -a` works better. + * man\_db's binaries are installed unstripped by default. + * Since supporting certain layouts of manual page hierarchies causes + problems for others, the layout is now selectable via `configure`. The + default is to try all layouts. + * `man` only does an on-the-fly update of the database caches when the + `--update` option is given. + * Manual pages are displayed with a line length appropriate to the current + terminal. If a non-standard line length is used (i.e. the terminal is + not between 66 and 80 characters wide) then cat pages will not be saved. + * `mandb` tries to purge obsolete entries from its databases. Using the + `--create` flag should now usually only be necessary in cases of database + corruption. + +man\_db-2.3.18 (14 May 2001) +============================ + +man\_db-2.3.18 is an interim release under new maintenance by Colin Watson, +merging much of the work done by former maintainers (Graeme Wilford and +Fabrizio Polacco). It incorporates several years of changes made in the +Debian GNU/Linux distribution's package of man\_db. + +Here are a few highlights, with the names of the maintainers responsible for +them. As I am documenting after the fact of other people's changes of a few +years ago, I have undoubtedly missed a number of fixes and improvements; I +promise to keep track of these as I go along in future. + +Fixes: + + * Multiple security fixes, including better handling of temporary files, a + format string vulnerability fix, and more careful dropping of privileges + when running setuid. [Fabrizio, Colin] + * Databases no longer disappear temporarily while they are being + regenerated. [Fabrizio] + * Corrected handling of locale environment variables. Setting several + colon-separated locales in `$LANGUAGE` also works now. [Colin] + * `whatis` and `apropos` are more careful about the possibility of a + corrupted database. [Fabrizio, Colin] + +Improvements: + + * If `root` has private manual hierarchies, cat pages generated from them + are no longer chowned to a less-privileged user. [Wilf] + * Rewrote configuration file handling, adding `DEFINE` directives to set + paths to external programs. The configuration file is now called + `man_db.conf`. [Wilf] + * Support FHS paths (`/usr/share/man` and `/var/cache/man`) in preference + to FSSTND paths (`/usr/man` and `/var/catman`). [Fabrizio] + * Converted from `catgets` to GNU `gettext` for national language support. + [Fabrizio, Colin] + * Several new and improved localized message catalogues and translated man + pages. [Fabrizio, Colin, other contributors] + * Added `accessdb` utility, which displays the contents of a manual page + database. [Fabrizio] + * Added user configuration file `~/.manpath`, with the same syntax as the + global configuration file. [Fabrizio] + * Leading or trailing colons in the `MANPATH` environment variable cause + the manpath derived from configuration files to be prepended or appended + respectively. A double colon in the middle of the environment variable + causes the configuration file manpath to be inserted between the colons. + [Fabrizio] + * Added experimental `-H` and `-Thtml` options to take advantage of + `groff`'s new HTML driver. [Fabrizio] + * `lexgrog` now scans manual pages to guess which preprocessors are needed. + [Fabrizio] + * Create cat directories on the fly if necessary. [Fabrizio] + * Supply a wrapper which explicitly drops privileges to uid `man` if `man` + or `mandb` is run as root. In the future, splitting out setuid functions + into a separate helper process may remove the need for this paranoia. + [Fabrizio] + * Add `--test` option to `mandb`, which merely reports errors in manual + page hierarchies rather than actually creating or updating a database. + [Fabrizio, Colin] + * Manual pages may now be symlinks outside the mantree. This should pose + no significant security concerns, and utilities such as GNU stow create + such symlinks. [Colin] + * Deprecate `whatis` references for `man`, and display a warning if + displaying a page relies on going through a `whatis` reference. They + often lead to confusingly non-obviously-deterministic behaviour, and + guaranteeing that `man` will honour them even when the database is out of + date causes performance problems. [Colin] + +man\_db-2.3.11 (21 September 1995) +================================== + + * The man\_db manual is bundled in source form. + * Components of `$PATH` not in the config file were checked for `man` + subdirectories. Now they are also checked for `../man`. + * Untarring a new manual page (with a timestamp older than the relative cat + file) over the original did *not* cause `man`/`catman` to reformat the + replacement. This is changed. As a side effect, untarring an unchanged + man file over the original will also cause a reformat. + +man\_db-2.3.10 (13 July 1995) +============================= + +Fixes: + + * Global databases were not owned by setuid owner (if applicable). As a + consequence only `mandb` could update the databases unless `man` was run + by superuser. Stupid bug. + * The keyword passed to `apropos` _never_ matched the first word of any + whatis line. + * `FAVOUR_STRAYCATS` code (if enabled), did not work properly. + * `zsoelim` did not work as advertised. + +Improvements: + + * `man` removes its temporary files upon abnormal termination. + * `apropos` does proper word matching rather than the fuzzy matching of + 2.3.5. E.g. supplying any of the keywords: `ld.so`, `a.out`, `dynamic`, + `linker` or `loader` will match the following entry: + + ld.so (8) - a.out dynamic linker/loader + + whereas `a.out` and `loader` used to fail. + + * `man`/`whatis`/`apropos` return with exit code 16 if manual page/file or + keyword is not matched. Previously exit code 0 was used making it + difficult for callers to know if the lookup was successful. + * Addition of German message catalogue. + * `apropos` and `man -k` do POSIX specified regex matching rather than + keyword searches if the environment variable `POSIXLY_CORRECT` is + defined. + * Added glob-only support of native system manual hierarchies on HP-UX, OSF + and Solaris operating systems. Improved the `whatis` parsing code to + cope with majority of HP-UX manual pages. + * Ported to NeXTstep. + +man\_db-2.3.5 (21 April 1995) +============================= + +Added support for: + + * Non-standard section names i.e. multi-character + + * Compressed manual pages. + + A new utility `zsoelim` is included to correctly handle `nroff` `.so` + requests that point to a file which has been compressed. + + * Compressed stray cats. + + By definition, stray cats are not re-creatable as they have no relative + source manual page. As they may have non-default compression extensions + and may reside on read-only media, stray cats have the same compression + support as manual pages. + + * FSSTND proposed "extension" support. + + Specific package manual pages may be installed in the standard sections + but with a package-unique extension appended as in `exit(3tcl)` - + `../man/man3/exit.3tcl`. Using the command `man -e tcl exit` would then + display an `exit` manual page with a `tcl` extension, if available. Of + course, `man 3tcl exit` works as always. + + * FSSTND proposed NLS man subdirectories of the form + `.../man/<locale>/man<sec>/`. + + * NLS message catalogue hooks. + + Provision has been made for the programs to emit their messages in a + language dependent form. + + * `whatis` referred manual pages. + + Some manual pages contain relevant information for commands or programs + that would not otherwise reference the page. The `whatis` part of the + manual page is used to create virtual links to these pages by all of the + names mentioned within it. Examples include names such as `.` and `:` + referencing the local shell manual page. + + * `catman` utility, used to pre-format the manual pages into cat pages. + + * Operating systems other than Linux. + + man\_db has been reported to compile on the following platforms: Linux, + SunOS, Solaris, Ultrix, OSF, HP-UX, AIX, IRIX (although portability does + not extend to support of native manual tree structures on some of these + systems, e.g. HP-UX). + + * Berkeley DB library routines. + + This complements the support of both `gdbm` and `ndbm` which already + existed. DB databases may be shared across platforms. + + * `$MANOPTS` environment variable. + + The environment variable `MANOPTS` may be set to any string in command + line option/argument format. It is parsed by `man(1)` prior to its + actual command line. + + * Per manual hierarchy cat directory locations. + + It is possible to redirect your cat pages to other directories or even + other file systems. + + * Per manual hierarchy `nroff`/`[tg]roff` format scripts. + + Ability to create custom formatter scripts that are called by `man(1)` to + enable format/display of non-standard manual pages or manual pages + requiring a special macro package. + + * Extension of `man -l`. + + Arguments following `-l` are interpreted as local files requiring format + and display. Extensions are: + + - `man -l -` formats and displays `stdin`. + - `man -l foo.1.gz` decompresses, formats and displays `foo.1.gz`. + + * Latin1 manual pages/choice of `nroff` output device. + + * Viewing of ASCII manual pages formatted for a latin1 output device on a 7 + bit ASCII terminal (`-7`). + + * `whatis` and `apropos` utilities support regex and wildcard matching. + + * `checkman`. + + Shell script utility that will find and display duplicated manual pages + found across manual page hierarchies. + + * `mkcatdirs`. + + Shell script utility to create appropriate cat directories after + installation and setup. + +Conceptual improvements: + + * Replacement of single database with multiple modular databases. Easier + integration of additional information into the databases in the future. + + * Both user and global databases share the same name `index.<db-type>`, + where `<db-type>` could be `bt`, `db`, or `pag` and `dir`. + + * Databases contain `whatis` text. + + `makewhatis` and text `whatis` databases are redundant, although `whatis` + and `apropos` will use the text `whatis` database for information if they + cannot read from a relevant index database. + + * Straycats handled without need for 'placeholders'. + + * Friendly `less(1)` prompt. + + If `man(1)` uses `less(1)` as its pager (dependent on both static and + dynamic factors), the prompt is modified to suit the manual page being + displayed. The modification performed is also changeable by the user. + + * man\_db manual. + + man\_db has a manual that covers the setup, maintenance and use of a + generic online manual page system. + + * Modes of operation. + + The man\_db utilities can be compiled with various modes of operation in + mind. E.g. `man` can be stopped from updating databases and/or creating + cat files in situations where security is extremely important. See the + man\_db manual for details. + +Speed improvements: + + * Background compression/saving of cat files. + + Cat files are compressed and saved in the background, whilst the user is + able to browse the formatted page directly. + + * Merge of `straycats` and `makewhatis` into `mandb`. + + While `mandb` has slowed, it now incorporates `makewhatis` and + `straycats` functionality and is much faster as a whole. 2.0a2 used + `grep`/`awk`, 2.2 used C regex and 2.3 now uses `lex` sourced C to strip + out the `whatis` information from the raw man or cat files. + + * Berkeley DB support. + + Provides lower database initialisation overhead as compared with `gdbm`. + + * Extremely fast `whatis(1)` searches. + + `whatis(1)` uses keyed database lookups to retrieve whatis strings for + standard (non regex/wildcard) searches. + +Fixes: + + * Correct handling of `$MANSECT`. + + The environment variable `MANSECT` is no longer ignored. + + * Acknowledgement of `$MANPATH` order. + + manpath elements are searched in the order specified. |