[Adduser-devel] Bug#435778: adduser --system --quiet should fail if user exists and is not a system user

[Vincent Bernat]

Package: adduser
Version: 3.104
Severity: wishlist

Hi !

When using adduser --system --quiet, there is no error if the user
exists. I think that adduser should issue an error if the error exists
and is not a system user. This way, the installation of a package will
fail instead of using a non system user for running a daemon.

Example of package using adduser without checking user is ntp. Most
other packages check if the user exists before using adduser and
therefore will not benefit of this change.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR at euro, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR at euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages adduser depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]      1.5.14        Debian configuration management sy
ii  passwd                     1:4.0.18.1-11 change and administer password and
ii  perl-base                  5.8.8-7       The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

adduser recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
  adduser/homedir-permission: true