Re: uid/gid - comments?

[Andreas Jellinghaus <aj@dungeon.inka.de>]

> This is common enough... should we perhaps create a system wide file, that
> maps default {user,group}names to local {user,group}names?
> 
> eg, in /etc/local_names:
> mysql	mysql
> ups	ups2


no, please do not add another level of indirection.
most daemons have configureable user id's anyway.

it can go wrong and it will. for example with updateing slink
to potato and installing new potato packages - nothing can prevent
that i might have created a user id, that is reserved in potato.

and if you realy want, there is always a way to shoot yourself.

so we should better find a smart way to handle this.

for the novice user: they either may not use the package or have to remove the
user id before installing the package.

for the experienced user: take care of it yourself.
changeing permissions (suid/sgid on apps and /var/lib/* stuff) is
not that difficult. editing for example http.conf to use a different
user id is also easy.

anyway, i only expect less than 0.1 percent of debian users to suffer
from these problems. on the other side, if you add another level of
indirection, then everyone will have to learn that new concept and live 
with it. 

please remember why windows is not good. too many levels of indirections,
unknown strange concepts and that stuff is part of the windows problem.

always remember: keep it simple !

andreas