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Re: Adding and removing a user automatically



Adam P. Harris writes:
> 
> [You (Martin Schulze)]
> >On Wed, Mar 04, 1998 at 10:28:08PM -0600, Zed Pobre wrote:
> >> Could someone point me in the direction of some sample shell script code
> >> that will let me check to see if a given username already exists with a
> >> given group ID?  I'm trying to finesse my IRAF installation script, and
> >> just brute-force calling adduser on every install seems a little ugly.
> >> I've examined the adduser code and suspect that I might be able to write a
> >> similar custom routine manually in perl based upon it, but that's going to
> >> add a dependency to the package, and is also going to be hard on my nerves
> >> :)
> >
> >Take a look at the postinst script of msqld.
> 
> Um!  Adding users is a gross violation of policy.   From section 3.2:
> 
> No package except base-passwd may modify /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, or /etc/group.
> 
> Do we need to file an "important" level bug against msqld?  Does that 
> package actually create a user?

If you use an /etc/passwd from hamm, I guess no.  The passwd
maintainer hasn't added the user for me for a long time, even in
bo it is non-existant.  This means that the postinst has to
create it otherwise the package can't work.  Period.

A package that needs a special user that wasn't included in old
/etc/passwd files can't rely on its existance.  Nobody would update
his/her /etc/passwd after running the system for several months. 
All the local users would get lost.  This means no package may
rely on these users.

Regards,

	Joey

-- 
  / Martin Schulze  *  joey@infodrom.north.de  *  26129 Oldenburg /
 / A mathematician is a machine                                  /
/                           for converting coffee into theorems /


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