Re: Bug#162211: chown: 'man': invalid user -- man-db should create man user if it's missing.

[tony mancill <tony@mancill.com>]

On Tue, 24 Sep 2002, Colin Watson wrote:

> I disagree. I don't believe I should add it because it has a user-id
> under the control of the base-passwd package, and it has been in
> base-passwd's /etc/passwd since that package was created. I also think
> that you as a sysadmin should avoid removing usernames that are under
> the control of base-passwd, or else expect packages to fail. Thus, I'm
> downgrading this bug to wishlist.

FWIW, I agree with Colin on this point.  The package should be able to
depend on the usernames provided by base-passwd.  In situations where
the admin has taken steps to remove these accounts, I think the standard
disclaimer applies - "If you break it, you get to keep both halves."

That being said, perhaps base-passwd could stuff a bit more information
into to comment field for "distribution-managed" accounts in order to make
things a bit more self-documenting.  (And therefore easier for sercurity
conscious admins who may be paring down the cruft in /etc/passwd...)
Maybe something like:

man:x:6:100:man (reqd for man-db pkg):/var/cache/man:/bin/sh

Cheers,
tony