Debian Bug report logs - #654705
dpkg: Add user/group handling

Reply or subscribe to this bug.

Display info messages

Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.com.au>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: manage user/group creation from apt or dpkg

Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:31:24 +0100

Package: apt
Version: 0.8.10.3+squeeze1
Severity: wishlist

Currently packages can add users and groups from their postinst scripts

The admin has no clear indication which users/groups might be created
when selecting packages to install

This does not meet the needs of all administrators.  For example:
- admin wants to use LDAP
- admin wants identical numeric IDs on all hosts to simplify use of
backup and rsync software (e.g. Bacula backs up file ownership numerically)

A more controlled solution might involve some of the following:

- in addition to checking for disk space, `apt-get install' would check
if all required users exist
- apt or dpkg would create the users required by the requested packages
- a setting in dpkg.cfg or apt.conf.d would allow the admin to disable
automatic user creation (in other words, apt-get install would abort
before any change to the system and just give the admin a list of
missing users to create manually)

Workaround: the admin can do things like creating a symlink from
(useradd|adduser) to /bin/false to ensure that dpkg fails on unexpected
user creation.  However, this potentially leaves packages partially
installed.

Message #10 received at 654705@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org>

To: Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.com.au>, 654705@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#654705: manage user/group creation from apt or dpkg

Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2015 00:38:32 +0200

Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -1 dpkg
Control: block -2 by -1

On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 12:31:24PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> Package: apt
> Version: 0.8.10.3+squeeze1
> Severity: wishlist
> 
> Currently packages can add users and groups from their postinst scripts
> 
> The admin has no clear indication which users/groups might be created
> when selecting packages to install
> 
> This does not meet the needs of all administrators.  For example:
> - admin wants to use LDAP
> - admin wants identical numeric IDs on all hosts to simplify use of
> backup and rsync software (e.g. Bacula backs up file ownership numerically)
> 
> A more controlled solution might involve some of the following:
> 
> - in addition to checking for disk space, `apt-get install' would check
> if all required users exist
> - apt or dpkg would create the users required by the requested packages
> - a setting in dpkg.cfg or apt.conf.d would allow the admin to disable
> automatic user creation (in other words, apt-get install would abort
> before any change to the system and just give the admin a list of
> missing users to create manually)

This is something dpkg would have to do.

> Workaround: the admin can do things like creating a symlink from
> (useradd|adduser) to /bin/false to ensure that dpkg fails on unexpected
> user creation.  However, this potentially leaves packages partially
> installed.


-- 
Julian Andres Klode  - Debian Developer, Ubuntu Member

See http://wiki.debian.org/JulianAndresKlode and http://jak-linux.org/.

Be friendly, do not top-post, and follow RFC 1855 "Netiquette".
    - If you don't I might ignore you.

Message #23 received at 654705@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>

To: Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org>, Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.com.au>, 654705@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#654705: manage user/group creation from apt or dpkg

Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 15:56:52 +0200

Control: forcemerge 685734 -1

On Fri, 2015-08-14 at 00:38:32 +0200, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> Control: clone -1 -2
> Control: reassign -1 dpkg
> Control: block -2 by -1
> 
> On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 12:31:24PM +0100, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> > Currently packages can add users and groups from their postinst scripts
> > 
> > The admin has no clear indication which users/groups might be created
> > when selecting packages to install
> > 
> > This does not meet the needs of all administrators.  For example:
> > - admin wants to use LDAP
> > - admin wants identical numeric IDs on all hosts to simplify use of
> > backup and rsync software (e.g. Bacula backs up file ownership numerically)
> > 
> > A more controlled solution might involve some of the following:
> > 
> > - in addition to checking for disk space, `apt-get install' would check
> > if all required users exist
> > - apt or dpkg would create the users required by the requested packages
> > - a setting in dpkg.cfg or apt.conf.d would allow the admin to disable
> > automatic user creation (in other words, apt-get install would abort
> > before any change to the system and just give the admin a list of
> > missing users to create manually)
> 
> This is something dpkg would have to do.
> 
> > Workaround: the admin can do things like creating a symlink from
> > (useradd|adduser) to /bin/false to ensure that dpkg fails on unexpected
> > user creation.  However, this potentially leaves packages partially
> > installed.

This was already filed in dpkg, merging.

Thanks,
Guillem

Send a report that this bug log contains spam.