Re: Bits from the release team: the plans for etch
On Wed, Oct 26, 2005 at 11:11:00AM +0200, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peńa wrote:
> That really depends on the daemon itself don't you think? There's a number of
> daemons that don't create any file at all or, if they do, are created
> only on a given directory which is removed on purge. In these cases, removing
> the user on postrm's purge might make sense. As I said, that would be an
> option.
It is still possible that those daemons _read_ some files (e.g. config
files), and the admin did a chown/chgrp to the daemon's user. Removing
the user and reusing the UID/GID will suddenly make those files
accessible for a random new package which may not be intended at all.
IMHO you can safely remove an user/group _only_ if you have made sure
there are no files owned by that uid/group left on any filesystems (and
checking that may be tricky if the system uses ACLs, for example).
And there is also the problem of files restored from a backup being
suddenly owned by some random new user/group...
At the very least you should ask the admin if he wants to remove the
user/group on package purge (with the default being 'no').
Gabor
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MTA SZTAKI Computer and Automation Research Institute
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
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