Users and groups kept after a port deinstallation

RW rwmaillists at googlemail.com
Sun May 23 01:11:53 UTC 2010


On Sun, 23 May 2010 03:39:53 +0400
Anonymous <swell.k at gmail.com> wrote:

> RW <rwmaillists at googlemail.com> writes:
> 
> > On Sat, 22 May 2010 11:42:53 -0400
> > jhell <jhell at dataix.net> wrote:
> >> This is more of a best practices case than what the implications of
> >> leaving users in the master.passwd are.
> >
> > Why is it best practice? Why add extra complexity to solve a problem
> > that doesn't actually exist?
> 
> Such unused entries in passwd add clutter. It in turn makes managing
> users more complex. You have to remember which users are created by
> you and which ones are created by ports. 

You don't have to remember, just look at the UID/GID values, ordinary
users start at 1001, ports create UIDs < 1000.

The base system alone creates 18 such users, if you have problems with
this kind of thing a few stale uids are the least of your problems.

> So, if you change home dir
> of some user there may be undesireble consequences. And only then
> security becomes a concern because port app may be run with
> privilegies that are higher than intended.

This appears to refer to an admin confusing a normal user with a
system user that's still in use by a port, so I don't see the
relevance.


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