Usercreation-policy

[Sean Middleditch]

On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 22:38, Bill Nottingham wrote:

> - users are 'registered' when a package wants them, doled out
>   by hand, and recorded in a documentation file. This is currently
>   in the setup package, uidgid file.
> - users and groups are *not* deleted on package uninstall; as they're
>   unique, that's not a big of a deal.
> - users and groups are *not* reused. Even if the old package goes
>   away.

The situation I personally see as the biggest problem is when we have
shared directories using NFS (or another protocol that mandates
UID<->username matching), but there are many apps on local machines not
on the server.

The problem is, your local machines end up with UIDs for special users
that don't match each other, or the central server.  So if you start
copying files around that happens to be owned by those special users (or
groups), things can get a bit ugly.

It's a minor point, rather rare in practice, and something that should
*probably* be fixed by using a protocol that offers real UID mappings,
but its something to keep in mind, if nothing else.

</babble>

-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis at awesomeplay.com>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.