Bug#621833: System users: removing them
On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 08:32:21PM +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:
> We could add special behaviour to adduser to unlock the account
> if it already exists when run in the postinst.
Yes, that would be the way to go for adduser --system
> However, most postinsts wrap the call to adduser with a check for
> whether the account already exists, so it would not be called
> without an update to every preinst employing this strategy.
Yes, packages having used that approached are buggy in the first place.
> It would also alter the existing behaviour of adduser, which is to
> return nonzero if the user already exists, which could cause
> breakage.
NACK, adduser --system does return zero if the user already exists and
its parameters are sufficiently similiar to the parameters requested
by the maintainer script.
> I dislike the fact that the behaviour of adduser and deluser would,
> in effect, /not/ add or delete users as intended, which is rather
> counter-intuitive. Providing that we have consensus on a recommended
> strategy for locking and unlocking accounts which can go into policy,
> I think all we need are examples for how maintainer scripts are
> expected to handle account creation and locking/unlocking.
NACK, don't put the same logic into a hundred maintainer scripts where
they'll have two hundred different bugs. Put the logic into a central
place where bugs can be handled centrally.
Greetings
Marc
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