Re: Adding users

[Steve Greenland <steveg@moregruel.net>]

On 23-Nov-01, 13:34 (CST), Sean Middleditch <elanthis@awesomeplay.com> wrote: 
> According to Debian Policy section 10.2.1, packages other than
> base-passwd are not allowed to modify the passwd and group files.  I
> assume this to mean that adduser can't be called from with a package.
> 

Nope. The slightly convoluted reasoning is that when you call adduser,
you aren't modifying them; you're using the approved interface to them.
Note that 10.2.2 includes 
	
	100-999

     Dynamically allocated system users and groups. Packages which
     need a user or group, but can have this user or group allocated
     dynamically and differently on each system, should use adduser
     --system to create the group and/or user. adduser will check for
     the existence of the user or group, and if necessary choose an
     unused id based on the ranges specified in adduser.conf.

which would seem to cover your need. If you need a fixed ID (rather
than just a name that can be any id), you need to get the base-files
maintainer to allocate one. Or better yet, fix the code so it doesn't
need it.

Steve