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Adding users to groups in postinst



Hi.

The chipcard-tools package (source is libchipcard) which I maintain has the
following code fragment in it's postscript to add a user chipcard (which it sets
up) to the group dialout in order to access serial ports without being root:

        if ! getent group | grep -q "^dialout:.*\bchipcard\b" ; then
            adduser --quiet chipcard dialout
        fi

Now, if the dialout group entry contains nonexistent groups, above code fragment
will die with
 gpasswd: unknown user nonexistent
 adduser: `/usr/bin/gpasswd -M nonexistent,chipcard dialout'
 returned error code 1.  Aborting.

IMO the behavior of adduser (or gpasswd) is incorrect. Either the "nonexistent"
user should be deleted or kept, but it should not affect addition of the
chipcard user to the group.

So here's my question:
Should I
- file a bug against adduser or gpasswd?
- improve the postinsts handling of the situation
  Note that access to the serial/usbtty ports is vital to the daemon in the
  package.
Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers and TIA

T.

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