Moving root password management and first user creation out of 2nd stage

[Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>]

I guess that after apt-setup, the next target on Joey's attempts to
reduce base-config to nothing might be the steps actually involving
shadow.

We seem to have a few options here, assuming we just want to move the
following steps to 1st stage:

-root password setting
-first user creation (and password setting)


1) Create a udeb from shadow and use it

2) use our own udeb in d-i tree, stealing as much as possible from
   shadow

3) create two smaller udebs, one for the root password stuff and
   another for the user creation
 


Actually, base-config just triggers "dpkg-reconfigure passwd".

passwd config script is fairly simple and actually does something ONLY
on "reconfigure" so, in (very) short, it is only useful on new systems
installs.

As a consequence, I would tend to favour solution 1).

The current script uses the following from passwd:

-chpasswd
-shadowconfig (a very simple script)
-useradd (it uses adduser if available)


So, provided we can manage to have chpasswd and useradd in a udeb, I
think we could imagine quite easily doing all this.

Then later, we will remove the whole "reconfigure" stuff from passwd...

Comments ?



Volunteers (I can do it but I can't promise it will be done The Right
Way...:-)) ?