[Adduser-devel] Preventing accidental REMOVE_HOME when you didn't know the option was set in deluser.conf

[Jason Spiro]

Jason Spiro <jasonspiro4+gmane <at> gmail.com> writes:

> I propose this solution:  [userdel's] command-line options --remove-home and
> --remove-all-files should still work as usual.
> 
> But the config file REMOVE_HOME and REMOVE_ALL_FILES should not work unless
> the sysadmin also sets the BACKUP option or the INTERACTIVE option.  The
> INTERACTIVE option would be a new option that you would write.  It would
> prompt, "Delete all files owned by jspiro? [y/N]"

A followup to my own post:  Some people on irc.oftc.net #debian-devel,
including Rhonda, ol, and formorer, pointed out to me that this would just
encourage sysadmins to alias root's deluser to 'deluser --remove-all-files'
instead of using REMOVE_ALL_FILES in deluser.conf.  Also, if this gets changed
in Debian but not other distros, it will surprise sysadmins who support
multiple distros.  So, on second thought, there is no reliable way to make this
safer.