[Adduser-devel] Bug#679746: Bug#679746: default --system home directory leads to piuparts RC bugs

[Andreas Barth]

* Stephen Gran (sgran at debian.org) [121212 08:19]:
> This one time, at band camp, Andreas Barth said:
> > > Now, I don't agree that this is a bug in adduser - I think this is a bug
> > > in packages invoking adduser.  I think the right way to do this is a
> > > mass bug filing on those packages.
> > 
> > I think I disagree here.
> > 
> > If we have a switch on adduser "--system" saying that the user to be
> > created is a system-user, I tend to think that adduser should then
> > select an appropriate place to create $HOME. (I wouldn't mind if we
> > say that for the upcoming release, this still is within /home, and we
> > fix that for the next stable release.)
> 
> Where would you suggest? 

I suggest to tolerate the current behaviour for the upcoming release.
Afterwards, I suggest to either require either --no-home or --home for
system users. Or switch defaults to another location, e.g.
/var/lib/syshome (or whatever else).


> I can't think of a better place, in the
> absence of direction, than /home.  If packages rely on the presence of a
> home directory, it's up to them to ask for a sensible one.

Currently, packages become RC-buggy for just adding system users
without --no-home and no --home (even if not relying on the
directory). I think that - if we read policy as that - then it's
better to fail the postinst then to have hidden RC bugs. Explicit RC
bugs are always better then well hidden ones. (Of course, all of that
for after this cycle.)


Andi