Re: useradd

[Johannes Poehlmann <jhp@caldera.de>]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2001 at 05:29:05PM +1100, Christopher Yeoh wrote:

> Some (at least Caldera/Red Hat) of the distributions have modified
> versions of useradd which allow for the creation of 'system' accounts
> which results in the assignment of lower nummber UIDs. We've been
> asked to consider whether this option should be made part of the
> standard (on Red Hat it is the '-r' flag).
 
> This option is obviously useful for installation scripts, but it is
> not implemented across all of the distributions yet and does not
> appear to be in the upstream version of the shadow package yet. What
> are peoples views on whether or not this should be included in the LSB
> specification?

We at Caldera do not have the -r switch. 

Installation scripts can emulate this switch by using the -O switch:

	useradd -OUID_MAX=100 -OUID_MIN=0 

works with the actual upstream version.

Clearly it could be preferable to have a "system user switch" which would 
allow the local system administrator or Distributor to configure, where
new system users go.  

When standardizing the -r switch, we should

o standardize it´s behaviour or
o ask marek to put it in the mainstream version and declare mareks 
  way to do it as the standard. 
o Freeze the interface to a certain upstream version.

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