[Fedora-packaging] Re: Possible UsersAndGroupsDraft

[Axel Thimm]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 01:21:28PM -0400, Simo Sorce wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-06-14 at 17:25 +0200, Axel Thimm wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 08:40:16AM -0500, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2007-06-14 at 10:19 +0200, Axel Thimm wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 11:45:27PM -0500, Tom spot Callaway wrote:
> > > > > I'm not quite sure I'm ready to bring this to the FPC for a vote, but
> > > > > I've been working on a modified version of Ville's draft:
> > > > > 
> > > > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/TomCallaway/UsersAndGroupsDraft
> > > > > 
> > > > > While this is more complicated, I think it more adequately covers the
> > > > > corner cases of adding users and groups. Thoughts?
> > > > 
> > > > It is far too complicated, Ville's version did the job already quite
> > > > well. You're also introducing non-standard tools again. :/
> > > 
> > > Not really. The tools I introduced are helper scripts.
> > > 
> > > Ville's draft only created the user/group if it didn't exist, and if
> > > not, didn't, but left the files owned as that user/group. That security
> > > issue concerns me.
> > 
> > Yes, but the proposed complicated apparatus does not justify
> > this. Better to have %pre fail then and deal with the transaction
> > mess. After all how often will a sysadmin have created a non-system
> > user "amanda" (and accidentially install amanda w/o remembeing that he
> > had such a user)?
> 
> Axel, you couldn't choose a worst example :)

I didn't choose it, it's in the proposal.

> Amanda is also a real name (female in Italy), so it is plausible that
> you have such user in your system.

I know, it's very popular name especially in the US. I'm currently
reading baby name books ... ;)

> It is also entirely possible that the admin does not know that such user
> exists as users may come from ldap,nis,winbindd and not created by such
> admin but by someone else.

Well in that spirit it is also possible that the master admin manages
/usr/local and has put something else called amanda in there. The
point is we can't cater for all possible local configurations like
split adminstration, we need to make some assumptions to remain sane.

> I think at least a check to see if the "amanda" user is < 1000 would
> make a lot of sense.

Then maybe it makes more sense to have "useradd -r" fail when the user
is > 500, e.g. outside the desired -r switch instead of obscuring the
specfiles with wrappers, scripts, registries and all that. :)
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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