Re: Bug#162211: chown: 'man': invalid user -- man-db should create man user if it's missing.

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>]

severity 162211 wishlist
thanks

On Tue, Sep 24, 2002 at 11:18:27PM +0300, Petri Koistinen wrote:
> Package: man-db
> Version: 2.4.0-10
> Severity: important
> 
> I have have removed 'man' user from /etc/passwd some time ago. I also
> removed man-db package. Now I want man-db package back. Installing man-db 
> again does not work, because there is no 'man' user in system.
> 
> Solution: If there is no 'man' when man-db is being installed,
> it should be added.

I disagree. I don't believe I should add it because it has a user-id
under the control of the base-passwd package, and it has been in
base-passwd's /etc/passwd since that package was created. I also think
that you as a sysadmin should avoid removing usernames that are under
the control of base-passwd, or else expect packages to fail. Thus, I'm
downgrading this bug to wishlist.

However, I'm cc'ing this to debian-devel for discussion. If this is
really what I'm supposed to do, then *all* packages using statically
allocated uids should be expected to do the same, contrary to current
Debian policy.

Please cc replies on debian-devel to the bug report.

Thanks,

-- 
Colin Watson                                  [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]