Fedora User Management (revisited)

[Simo Sorce]

On Sat, 2007-03-10 at 17:32 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Please can we kill the "fixed UID are useless", "you can get by with
> local planning", "I don't need it there" arguments once and for all? 

We are not saying all fixed UIDs are useless.
We are discussing the fact that the solution for fixed UIDs space needs
is to increase the space beyond 100 not invent some semi-predictable
method to assign ranges of uid/gids special meanings.

I know very well what are the limits of "special ranges" as we had to
use them in samba (see idmap ranges for winbindd).

> 1. If you really think so, are you ready to empty the current 0-100
> range and deal with the the user backlash?

I am not saying we should empty that space at all, what I am saying is
that A) fedora-usermgmt is not a good solution, B) not all daemons need
fixed uid/gids and some got one when they probably should have not.

> 2. We don't aim at "local planning mitigation", we aim at "just works"
> systems

If you plan at "just works" systems then there so many things to do,
that we should just enlarge the existing space ask package maintainers
to think if this may affect their packages and fix them eventually, and
move on.

> 3. Fixed uids are useful enough they got a range reserved within Fedora
> & Linux standards.

See above

> 4. People care enough today we'll get regular flamewars till the problem
> is fixed
> 
> The *only* problem is this range is full, not that it should or should
> not exist. Any other argument is not worth the bytes expended on it.

We are saying exactly the same thing here.
Violent agreement!

Simo.