[Adduser-devel] Bug#682156: delgroup I/O requirements are O(n^2) with regards to number of configured users

[Daniel Papasian]

On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 3:39 AM, Michelle Konzack
<linux4michelle at tamay-dogan.net> wrote:
> Du to your E-Mail, I assume your are working for Google...

Correct, but this bug isn't a product of my normal work.

> Do you mean this for real?

Yes.

> Who the hell put ~100k users in the /etc/passwd file?
>
> You are right, deleting a user ends up in hell and took more then 8min
>
> Question:  Does Google does such things?

To be honest, I have no idea who has 100k users in their /etc/passwd
file.  A coworker of mine mentioned observing this behavior while
walking to lunch; I didn't follow up with him about what machines he
saw this on, or whether this was even work related.

Given he didn't mention having any other problems with that number of
users on the machine, I think it's a win to correct this sub-optimal
behavior.  There's no reason to do an O(n^2) operation where an O(n)
one will do - especially when we're already doing the O(n) operation
anyway.

Daniel