[Fedora-packaging] packages which add user accounts: is fedora-usermgmt the way?

[Enrico Scholz]

mattdm at mattdm.org (Matthew Miller) writes:

>> > for Fedora Extras packages. We could make it start at 300 to be less
>> > likely to conflict with random "useradd -r" done earlier.
>> Assigning fixed IDs in this range would violate LSB which states
>> 
>> | The system User IDs from 100 to 499 should be reserved for dynamic
>> | allocation by system administrators and post install scripts using
>> | useradd.
>>   [http://www.linuxbase.org/spec//book/LSB-generic/LSB-generic/uidrange.html]
>
> Well, that leaves us with stuffing Extras system UIDs into 0-99, or
> violating the above-500 space,

... or using the fedora-usermgmt approach where every system administrator
can decide whether he wants semi-fixed uids and where he can configure a
free uid-range which is used for it.


> which is worse. Note that the LSB doesn't say "must" -- it says
> "should", so it's a recommendation, not a requirement.

Yes, it is only a recommendation. But should we violate it when alternative
solutions are existing?

The count of 200 free UIDs seems to be a little bit low for me; almost
every package with a daemon will require an own user so we will fill the
claimed 300-499 space in a few years.


Or -- why do not we take the 500-999 area and let normal users begin at
1000 (latter is already the case e.g. in Debian)? There the same situation
will arise: there might be conflicts with existing installations (like
with the 300-499 or any other fixed range), but as Seth says: "Change your
uid and chown all your files.  This is the nature of legacy."




Enrico
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