[Adduser-devel] Bug#759740: apt-cache-ng: user apt-cacher-ng already exists error when upgrading

[Eduard Bloch]

reassign 759740 adduser
retitle 759740 --system --quiet ... still produces warnings and bad exit code
thanks

Hallo,
* Andrew Patterson [Tue, Sep 02 2014, 03:24:10PM]:

> I guess I don't understand. The current account seem perfectly valid, i.e., uid = 108. Why is the configure scripts trying to re-add the user if it already exists? I can re-add the user, but what ID should I use?
> 
> I tried running adduser by hand and got what I think are the expected results:
> 
> # adduser --quiet --system --group --no-create-home --home /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng apt-cacher-ng
> adduser: The user `apt-cacher-ng' already exists. Exiting.

Nope, those are not the expected results:

   Add a system user
       If called with one non-option argument and the --system option, adduser will  add  a
       system  user.  If  a  user with the same name already exists in the system uid range
       (or, if the uid is specified, if a user with that uid already exists), adduser  will
       exit with a warning. This warning can be suppressed by adding "--quiet".

Now I am also wondering what is going on. The last year's bug was clearly reproducible with UID being outside of the system UID range. Your problem apparently has a different reason, therefore I am reassigning this BR.

> I am guessing I could delete the user, then rerun the configure script everything would fine.

Yes and no... you would need to change the ownership of the the logdir/cachedir contents (chown -R...) but appart from that it should do the job.

Thanks,
Eduard.