Bug#333862: debian-policy: Policy forbids account creation

[Marc Haber <mh+debian-bugs@zugschlus.de>]

Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.6.2.1
Severity: normal

Policy 9.2.1 says:
Packages other than base-passwd must not modify /etc/passwd,
/etc/shadow, /etc/group or /etc/gshadow.

This makes, for example, the passwd package RC buggy since useradd
modifies /etc/passwd. Also exim4 is RC buggy since its maintainer
scripts modify /etc/passwd by calling adduser which in turn calls
useradd which in turn modifies /etc/passwd while not belonging to
base-passwd.

The section in the policy should say
Packages other than base-passwd must not modify /etc/passwd,
/etc/shadow, /etc/group or /etc/gshadow directly from their maintainer
scripts.

Greetings
Marc


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.13-zgsrv
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=de_DE (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

-- no debconf information