On Fri, 9 Mar 2007 09:52:46 +0100, Axel Thimm wrote:
> > b) packages requiring fixed uid/gids: fedora-usermgmt's
default of
> > going useradd -r breaks the promise of fixed or semi-fixed uids/gids
>
> For _fixed_ (!) uids/gids, you don't use fedora-usermgmt, but useradd -u.
>
> useradd -r does not yield fixed, static or predictable results. And
> fedora-usermgmt (when enabled) gives predictable and static uids/gids,
> albeit not fixed ones. You don't need it when you need fixed uids/gids.
>
> Fixed => fixed world-wide => because a uid/gid may be compiled into the
> software (!) and must be the same for every installation of Fedora.
> This is not something fedora-usermgmt is used for.
Exactly, so what *is* it used for? Not for fixed uids, not for
non-fixed uids. But for "predictable" ones? Predictable by whom? The
next package cannot predict what the previous one used, and indeed
fedora-usrmgmnt is not even used that way.
So predictable means for a human being that is able to add 300 plus
42. What's the benefit of these predictable uids? None, really.
The promise of fedora-usermgmt was to deal with packages requiring
*fixed* uids but these ran out so to the rescue came
fedora-usermgmt. But we now agree that it does not really solve a
fixed uid's problem, that's good.
Predictable means you can keep the uid/gid constant, but still have an
influence on where that is within your range of values. Everytime you
install a package again on a machine under control of a configured
fedora-usermgmt, the package allocates the same uid/gid.
The only alternative is useradd -u/groupadd -g with a larger range of
uids/gids from which to occupy values per program per distribution.