Re: groups

[Osamu Aoki <debian@aokiconsulting.com>]

On Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 01:24:29AM -0600, Greg Murphy wrote:
> I recently switched from slackware to debian. Under slack, when users were 
> added they were defaultly added to the group "users". I see debian gives each 
> user his/her own group.
> 
> 1. Why did debian adopt this method? 

Same reason as RedHat :) (I actually do not know.  I like this.)

> 2. If say, I want to add two of my users to the same group, is it safe to add 
> them to the already existing "users (GID=100)" group, or is this reserved for 
> some program that comes with debian?
In "debian-policy" package, there exists a document called policy:
.... (Section 10)
     Some user ids (UIDs) and group ids (GIDs) are reserved globally for
     use by certain packages.  Because some packages need to include files
     which are owned by these users or groups, or need the ids compiled
     into binaries, these ids must be used on any Debian system only for
     the purpose for which they are allocated.  This is a serious
     restriction, and we should avoid getting in the way of local
     administration policies.  In particular, many sites allocate users
     and/or local system groups starting at 100.
...
     1000-29999:
          Dynamically allocated user accounts.  By default `adduser' will
          choose UIDs and GIDs for user accounts in this range, though
          `adduser.conf' may be used to modify this behavior.

I say, just change /etc/adduser.conf.  Details in "man adduser.conf"
Also check document for "base-passwd" package too.
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+  Osamu Aoki <debian@aokiconsulting.com>, GnuPG-key: 1024D/D5DE453D  +
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