[asterisk-dev] Deprecating users.conf

[Olle E. Johansson]

> On 30 Jun 2023, at 13:45, asterisk at phreaknet.org wrote:
> 
> Hi folks,
> 
>      I've put up a PR to deprecate users.conf[1], following a discussion earlier this year about this, but I think that was on IRC so wanted to discuss here as well.
> 
> Mark introduced users.conf at some point in the early 2000s with the idea of it being a "simple" way to configure certain things, but I think time has shown that to be its primary weakness. New modules haven't supported users.conf in a long time (such as PJSIP), and now that chan_sip is already gone, there is basically no point in keeping users.conf around anymore. The main two modules that still "support" it (if you can call the hack job parsing they do "support") are chan_dahdi and chan_iax2, and the configuration for both of these is almost entirely non-overlapping and really needs to be configured in the appropriate module config file anyways.
It was a bad hack from the start with a poor architecture. Time to remove it.
+100

/O
> 
> Therefore, I am proposing this be deprecated in 21 so that it can be removed in 23, in accordance with the Asterisk deprecation policy:
> 
> * Support for users.conf has dwindled as new modules no longer support
>   it and modules that did support it (e.g. chan_sip) have been largely
>   removed
> * No real functionality has been added to the users.conf mechanism
>   since it was introduced. New features are added to specific modules,
>   but these are not supported in users.conf
> * users.conf was a super simplistic mechanism that in practice did not
>   pan out. It's something that really should never have been added in
>   the first place. Use of it has been widely discouraged since it was
>   introduction, and caused confusion for Asterisk newcomers,
>   particularly with a default install where users see warnings about
>   users.conf. Users should not be using it and the fact that the
>   sample config still exists continues to create confusion
> * Removing users.conf will help eliminate technical debt, allowing for
>   simplification of the codebase and easier maintenance going forward
> 
> This is somewhat different as users.conf is not any single module, and there's no real process for deprecating a config file, but a warning message is added when the PBX loads here so that users will see a notice about it, just like with deprecated modules. It's also in the upgrade notes. This is a master only change, so it won't be removed until late 2025 at the earliest.
> 
> Any objections or other thoughts on this matter?
> 
> [1] https://github.com/asterisk/asterisk/pull/184
> 
> 
> -- 
> _____________________________________________________________________
> -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com --
> 
> asterisk-dev mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>  http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-dev