Bug#900354: lintian: warn against guarding adduser/addgroup calls
Package: lintian
Severity: wishlist
<@weasel> not that I'd file a bug about this, but I don't like this pattern:
<@weasel> if ! getent group "$REPRO_GROUP" >/dev/null; then
<@weasel> addgroup --system "$REPRO_GROUP" || exit 1
<@weasel> fi
<@weasel> the goal of --system is to a) not fail if the group exists and
is a system group
<@weasel> but also, to b) fail if the group exists and isn't a system group
<@jcristau> ack
<@weasel> since in that case we don't want to use that group as it might
be for whoknowswhat.
<@weasel> maybe this is something that should be brought to the
attention of qa, release, or the developers at large.
<@weasel> "guarding adduser calls considered harmful"
<@jcristau> seems like something lintian could catch
<@weasel> yup
Cheers,
Julien
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