Bug#329701: [Adduser-devel] Bug#329701: Local (non-NIS) users and groups

[Teddy Hogeborn]

Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages at zugschlus.de> writes:

> > > Which change is suggested to adduser?
> > 
> > The change of LAST_SYSTEM_UID in /etc/adduser.conf from 999 to 499.
> 
> /etc/adduser.conf is a conffile. The range 100-999 is laid down in
> policy 9.2.2, so changing the default in adduser is out of the
> question.

I'm trying to affect a policy change here.  But -policy consistently
refers to package maintainers to change their packages before a policy
change can be considered.  Therefore I'm trying to get packages to
change.  It can't be *impossible* to change, one or the other has to
be changed first.  I tried (several times) to bring up the issue in
debian-policy but no one replied.  That is why I'm now bringing up the
issue with you, the package maintainers of the affected packages.  So
far I have gotten the nis package maintainer to agree to the change if
done in concert with the other affected packages.

> > If this is done, Group IDs of 500 to 999 can be used for
> > NIS-exported groups, but this is not anything which adduser has to
> > be concerned about.
> 
> Right, adduser can be locally configure to handle this.

I know.  I'm talking about what the default should be.

> > One additional possibility is for adduser to support an interface
> > to add users/groups in this new range, which would involve a new
> > configuration option and at least one new command line option.
> > But this is not necessarily requested or required.
> 
> I'm actually not convinced that this would do any good. adduser
> traditionally does not care about NIS/LDAP setup, and I think that
> accounts and groups that will appear on multiple systems should not be
> created by adduser.

Fair enough for me; it was the nis package maintainer who suggested
that the proposal might be more convincing if adduser had an interface
to add users in this range.  I'm not attached to the idea.

Just to make something clear, though: users that are added by adduser
are already exported by NIS, since NIS by default exports all users
from ID 1000 and up (all except 65534).

/Teddy