Local (non-NIS) users and groups

[Teddy Hogeborn <teddy@fukt.hk-r.se>]

If I want to have machine-local users and groups, what uids and gids
would I want to give them?  The nis package by default exports all
uids from 100 and up, and the uids below that are reserved.

It could be decided to only export normal user ids (1000-29999) and
use system users for local stuff, but that raises the question about
where to place groups used for collaboration (for projects and the
like).  And sometimes you'd want such groups to be machine-local as
well (for files just in /usr/local, for instance).

So, what do I do?

Basiclly, I need two pieces of information.

1.  Where (in the uid space) to place groups.  I guess (by the text in
    the Policy Manual and the "adduser" man page) that these are meant
    to be placed in the same space as the "system users", but I'm not
    sure.  Is this really so?

2.  How to separate both local users and local groups from
    NIS-exported users and groups.  This is not addressed at all in
    the  "/usr/doc/nis/nis.debian.howto.gz" file, or in the Policy
    Manual.

I could just make up my own system, but I thought I'd ask here first.

Generally, the Debian system seems not to be designed for anything
else than a standalone system.  I'm new here, so I wonder: is this
planned to be fixed anytime soon?

/Teddy