Re: exploring debian's users and groups
On Aug 07, Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> wrote:
> HELP: I notice that /etc/news/leafnode/config and even /etc/news
> are here owned by news.news. Which is odd, because those
> arn't things the programs should be editing on the fly. What
> gives?
The package is buggy.
>uucp:
>
> HELP: Presumably used for UUCP, which I know nothing of.
The uucp subsystem needs its own user and group.
> HELP: Why is minicom owned by group uucp? Is this a bug?
Yes, it's a bug. Debian does not use group uucp to deal with serial port
since a very long time, maybe never did.
>majordom:
>
> Majordomo has a statically allocated uid on Debian systems for
> historical reasons.
>
> HELP: Do we still even ship that buggy old POS? And can someone
No. This is why I repeatedly requested the base-passwd maintainer to
remove this user.
Same thing for the msql user.
>fax:
>voice:
They may be used by mgetty/sendfax.
>dip:
>
> HELP: WHat did this group's name signify? DIaluP?
dip is a program used to manage SLIP connections.
I support any effort to reduce the number of users created by default.
Even if e.g. gnats needs a statically assigned user, it should be
created when the package is installed, not by base-passwd.
--
ciao,
Marco
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