[Adduser-devel] Some precisions about adduser's manpages

[Marc Haber]

On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 09:18:05PM +0200, Nicolas François wrote:
> (English is not my natural language, this may explain some of the points
> below)
> 
> 
> 1 In deluser.8, line 39
>   I think
>     .BR " \-\-group " options, " deluser
>   should be changed to
>     .BR " \-\-group " option, " deluser

Right.

> 2 In adduser.8, line 110, I don't understand what the "master program" is.

master program is the instance of adduser invoking the local script.
This is not very clear in the man page.

> 3 In adduser.8, line 114, I don't understand:
>   If an user with an uid in the system range (or if the uid is specified,
>   with that) does already exist, adduser will exit silently.
> 
>   I've made some tests:
>   # grep irc /etc/passwd
>   irc:x:39:39:ircd:/var/run/ircd:/bin/sh
>   # adduser --system irc
>   adduser: The user `irc' already exists, and is not a system user.# echo $?
>   1
> 
>   # grep munin /etc/passwd
>   munin:x:110:110::/var/lib/munin:/bin/false
>   # adduser --system munin
>   The user `munin' already exists as a system user.Exiting...
>   # echo $?
>   0
> 
>   So, adduser doesn't seems to exit silently (but the return value seems to
>   be null in the case of a existing system group). Moreover, I don't
>   understand when the part between the parenthesis can be applied).

That seems to be a bug in the program, which we unfortunately cannot
fix any more before sarge.

> 4 Still in adduser.8, line 191:
>   [...] user and group names are required to consist of [...]
>   Dashes in the username are accepted as well.
> 
>   What about group names ? (sorry, I didn't tried)

Dashes in the group name are also allowed. Should be clarified in the
man page.

> 5 deluser.conf.5, line 22
>   Comment lines must have a pound sign (#) in the first line.
>   Isn't it "at the beginning of the line"?

Yes, you're right.

> 6 deluser.conf.5, line 36
>   s/as no effect/has no effect/ ?

typo. You're right.

May I ask you to file bug reports for these issues? I am currently not
in a position to fix the documentation bugs in a short period of time.

Greetings
Marc

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