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sm-discuss - Re: [SM-Discuss] User/Group Account Management Proposal

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  • From: "Jeremy Blosser (emrys)" <jblosser-smgl AT firinn.org>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] User/Group Account Management Proposal
  • Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2006 16:19:56 -0600

On Jan 09, Sergey A. Lipnevich [sergey AT sourcemage.org] wrote:
> David Kowis wrote:
> > tracked and automatically removed. In my own twisted little mind, if
> > they're automatically added then they should be automatically removed
> > when they're no longer in use. For example: I install postgresql, the
> > user postgres is created, I didn't know that this user is created, but
> > nonetheless it's there. After dispelling postgresql, because I decided
> > that mysql is a better venue for the software I'm working on/with, the
> > postgres user remains on the system. What I'm proposing is that the
> > users get tracked somehow. If a spell needs the user it's added, upon
> > compile or resurrect. If the spell has that user and it is dispelled,
> > then the user should also vanish, unless, of course, it's being used
> > by another spell.
> For development and debugging this might be a good idea (I'm not sure),
> but in production it's out of the question that existing account is
> automatically deleted. I believe that no production system would survive
> even an internal audit if such a functionality is in use. For an account
> to be deleted, one would have to ensure that, at the minimum, no files
> are owned by it, and no log ever mention it, and this is already too
> much to ask from a packaging system.

I agree. Automatically removing users violates some fundamental sysadmin
practices. To the other subthread, no, there isn't a difference between
system and user accounts where this issue is concerned.

There is a bug about this somewhere on bugzilla, but I can't find it at the
moment. The last word I think was that any such feature would need to be
optional.

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