While you are at it, please switch to sysusers (see dh_installsysusers).
On Sat, 26 Apr 2025 22:29:07 +0200, Bastian Blank <[email protected]>
wrote:
While you are at it, please switch to sysusers (see dh_installsysusers).
While we're at this, I would like to ask the developer commiunity
whether it is true that we have dedided to go away from having
persistent /etc/passwd and /etc/group and that it will soon be
officially forbidden to use adduser in packages?
If that is actually the case, I'd like to see the discussion that I
must have overlooked.
Where are we going regarding user creation?
* Marc Haber <[email protected]> [250427 08:16]:
On Sat, 26 Apr 2025 22:29:07 +0200, Bastian Blank wrote:
While you are at it, please switch to sysusers (see dh_installsysusers).
While we're at this, I would like to ask the developer commiunity
whether it is true that we have dedided to go away from having
persistent /etc/passwd and /etc/group and that it will soon be
officially forbidden to use adduser in packages?
If that is actually the case, I'd like to see the discussion that I
must have overlooked.
I have not seen a decision on this anywhere.
[..]
Where are we going regarding user creation?
Unsure about users, but a general thing I'm seeing is: moving away from (adhoc) maintainer scripts to declarative configuration.
Now these also often use (automatically generated) maintainer script fragments, but it seems to be a step towards having no maintainer scripts
one day.
For what it is worth: I use `adduser` outside maintainer script.
I think I'm not alone in that.
Useradd has grown most of that functionality in the last two decades.
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 12:52:57 +0200, Geert Stappers
<[email protected]> wrote:
For what it is worth: I use `adduser` outside maintainer script.
I think I'm not alone in that.
Useradd has grown most of that functionality in the last two decades.
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 12:52:57 +0200, Geert Stappers
<[email protected]> wrote:
For what it is worth: I use `adduser` outside maintainer script.
I think I'm not alone in that.
Useradd has grown most of that functionality in the last two decades.
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
..For what it is worth: I use `adduser` outside maintainer script.
I think I'm not alone in that.
Useradd has grown most of that functionality in the last two decades.
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
If no one else wants to maintain adduser, I would ask Debian to please
do a call for maintainers before abandoning it. I won't immediately
step up and say "I'll do it" since I don't know if my workplace will
want to allocate my time to that, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
On Sun Apr 27, 2025 at 2:18 PM CEST, Marc Haber wrote:
Useradd has grown most of that functionality in the last two decades.
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
I think I do not fully understand what you mean: are you saying that
adduser is useless outside of maintainer scripts?
In my opinion adduser has great value outside of maintainer scripts!
But I'm sure you know better than me, so I'm ready to change my mind.
adduser has one very useful piece of functionality useradd doesn't
have to my awareness, which my workplace absolutely depends on for
hardware we build and sell. That's the ability to execute a "hook
script" at user creation (/usr/local/sbin/adduser.local), which can
then do bits of user account specific setup that can't be done via the
skel mechanism. Yes, we could just write a script that calls useradd
and then runs our user setup stuff, but adduser is currently
integrated into KDE (the desktop environment our hardware uses), so
that when the end user creates a new user account in KDE's settings
UI, the hook script is automatically run.
As long as people want to use adduser, I think/hope they'd be
grateful for its existence and continued maintenance?
On Sun, Apr 27, 2025 at 02:18:11PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
From how you write, I have the impression that you might be frustrated,
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 15:13:00 +0200, Chris Hofstaedtler
<[email protected]> wrote:
As long as people want to use adduser, I think/hope they'd be
grateful for its existence and continued maintenance?
As far as I was told, using sysusers is going to be mandatory soon, to
help with containers, immutable /usr and empty /etc.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 15:08:18 +0200, "Andrea Pappacoda"
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Sun Apr 27, 2025 at 2:18 PM CEST, Marc Haber wrote:
Useradd has grown most of that functionality in the last two decades.
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
I think I do not fully understand what you mean: are you saying that >adduser is useless outside of maintainer scripts?
I am saying that adduser was written in a time when useradd had about
a fifth of its current features, and that the local admin can use
useradd to create local users as comfortably nowadays, and be portable between distributions. adduser has developed into a helper for
maintainer scripts, and I was told a few weeks ago that the months of
my life I spent improving adduser are going down the drain.
In my opinion adduser has great value outside of maintainer scripts!
But I'm sure you know better than me, so I'm ready to change my mind.
Take a look at current useradd and decide wehther adduser actually
adds a value other than fitting your finger memory.
Greetings
Marc
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " |
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
The work people did on CVS and SVN and HG and whatnot didn't go down the >drain either, when git took over the world.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 15:08:18 +0200, "Andrea Pappacoda"
<[email protected]> wrote:
On Sun Apr 27, 2025 at 2:18 PM CEST, Marc Haber wrote:
Useradd has grown most of that functionality in the last two decades.
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
I think I do not fully understand what you mean: are you saying that >adduser is useless outside of maintainer scripts?
I am saying that adduser was written in a time when useradd had about
a fifth of its current features, and that the local admin can use
useradd to create local users as comfortably nowadays, and be portable between distributions. adduser has developed into a helper for
maintainer scripts, and I was told a few weeks ago that the months of my life I spent improving adduser are going down the drain.
Quoting Marc Haber (2025-04-28 08:39:17)
I am saying that adduser was written in a time when useradd had about
a fifth of its current features, and that the local admin can use
useradd to create local users as comfortably nowadays, and be portable
between distributions. adduser has developed into a helper for
maintainer scripts, and I was told a few weeks ago that the months of my life
I spent improving adduser are going down the drain.
I don't think that's true. Even if maintainer scripts are moving away from >adduser,
- useradd gained the features it did because adduser paved the way for them.
Thank you!
* Marc Haber <[email protected]> [250428 08:52]:
This is one more example of Debian lacking technical leadership, with
small groups taking technical decisions for the entire distribution
without even mentioning.
Yeah. There's always talk about some form of technical leadership
group, but it's always unclear how that should look like, and what
it powers should or even could be.
So we end up with informal SIGs (to not use "cabals"), and at best a
post to d-devel.
As far as I was told, using sysusers is going to be mandatory soon, to
help with containers, immutable /usr and empty /etc.
That's my biggest gripe about Debian. It strongly influences the only
voice I have in that regard, the DPL vote.
So we end up with informal SIGs (to not use "cabals"), and at best a
post to d-devel.
And that's bad.
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 09:38:56 +0200, Matthias Urlichs
The work people did on CVS and SVN and HG and whatnot didn't go down the >>drain either, when git took over the world.
That's different. git won because it was the superior program.
Am Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 11:02:13AM +0200 schrieb Marc Haber:
That's my biggest gripe about Debian. It strongly influences the only
voice I have in that regard, the DPL vote.
... speaking as DPL I was also not aware about the adduser issue and I
did not realised that this was a topic in any platform or question on >debian-vote. Honestly, I'm happy that I do not need to decide on this
kind of technical decisions and that we have some CTTE. Is there an >according bug documenting the problem?
Not that I know of. I was just told off-the-records that it does not
make sense to spend any more time on adduser since it's going to be
forbidden soon anyway.
On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 12:31:24PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
Not that I know of. I was just told off-the-records that it does not
make sense to spend any more time on adduser since it's going to be
forbidden soon anyway.
don't believe everything they say?
Fedora is discussing what to do in a related context:
https://lwn.net/Articles/1018082/
But sysusers might or might not actually help them.
The technical reasoning was sound (persistent /etc/passwd is going
away, so packages who need their uid better declare it via sysusers so
that it is recreated automatically on system boot) and I immediately understood that the advice was correct.
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 09:54:53 +0200, Chris Hofstaedtler
<[email protected]> wrote:
Fedora is discussing what to do in a related context:
https://lwn.net/Articles/1018082/
But sysusers might or might not actually help them.
Could somebody with an LWN subscription share a friends link?
Fedora is discussing what to do in a related context:
https://lwn.net/Articles/1018082/
But sysusers might or might not actually help them.
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 09:54:53 +0200, Chris Hofstaedtler
<[email protected]> wrote:
Fedora is discussing what to do in a related context:Could somebody with an LWN subscription share a friends link?
https://lwn.net/Articles/1018082/
But sysusers might or might not actually help them.
On 2025-04-28, Marc Haber <[email protected]> wrote:
The technical reasoning was sound (persistent /etc/passwd is going
away, so packages who need their uid better declare it via sysusers so
that it is recreated automatically on system boot) and I immediately
understood that the advice was correct.
Though some improvements are still quite much needed
https://lwn.net/Articles/1018082/
I mean, adduser isn't going to be somewhat-obsolete-for-some-usecases
(not all of them!) because somebody decided that Marc is a horrible
human being and/or his work is and has been completely useless, quite
the opposite in fact, but because of externals that prima facie have
nothing to do with you personally *or* the quality of your work.
While we're at this, I would like to ask the developer commiunityI am (nominally) one of the systemd package maintainers and I am not
whether it is true that we have dedided to go away from having
persistent /etc/passwd and /etc/group and that it will soon be
officially forbidden to use adduser in packages?
This is one more example of Debian lacking technical leadership, with
small groups taking technical decisions for the entire distribution
without even mentioning. Most of those technical decisions are sound and supportable, but there are technical decisions that have impact on other packages, and it is bad that those packages learn about it after
spending weeks or even months of spare time without knowing that this
work is going to go down the drain.
Subscriptions to LWN are free for DDs, somebody (HP IIRC) sponsors
them.
On Mon, 28 Apr 2025 11:34:18 +0200, Andreas Tille <[email protected]>
wrote:
Am Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 11:02:13AM +0200 schrieb Marc Haber:
That's my biggest gripe about Debian. It strongly influences the only
voice I have in that regard, the DPL vote.
... speaking as DPL I was also not aware about the adduser issue and I
did not realised that this was a topic in any platform or question on >>debian-vote. Honestly, I'm happy that I do not need to decide on this
kind of technical decisions and that we have some CTTE. Is there an >>according bug documenting the problem?
Not that I know of. I was just told off-the-records that it does not
make sense to spend any more time on adduser since it's going to be
forbidden soon anyway.
Actually, as I said, this is not an adduser issue, it is a general
thing I have with Debian, and it might be misunderstanding on my side
n general. And I understand that this is not fixed without going into
the constitution and changing many of our processes and that this is
not going to happen any time soon.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 12:52:57 +0200, Geert Stappers
<[email protected]> wrote:
For what it is worth: I use `adduser` outside maintainer script.
I think I'm not alone in that.
Useradd has grown most of that functionality in the last two decades.
That leaves no space for adduser between useradd and sysusers. At
least not enouch space to waste any more life time on it.
Greetings
Marc
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " |
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
On 28.04.25 12:56, Marc Haber wrote:
Could somebody with an LWN subscription share a friends link?
Subscriptions to LWN are free for DDs, somebody (HP IIRC) sponsors them.
On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 09:49:17 -0500, Aaron Rainbolt
<[email protected]> wrote:
adduser has one very useful piece of functionality useradd doesn't
have to my awareness, which my workplace absolutely depends on for
hardware we build and sell. That's the ability to execute a "hook
script" at user creation (/usr/local/sbin/adduser.local), which can
then do bits of user account specific setup that can't be done via the
skel mechanism. Yes, we could just write a script that calls useradd
and then runs our user setup stuff, but adduser is currently
integrated into KDE (the desktop environment our hardware uses), so
that when the end user creates a new user account in KDE's settings
UI, the hook script is automatically run.
Are you actually sure that KDE uses adduser? adduser as we are talking
about is a Debianism. The Red Hat World has its own adduser, which is
totally independent (and also totally incompatible), so I'd advise all
other programs which should be useful outside the Debian ecosystem to
not invoke adduser but to resort to standardized tools.
Greetings
Marc
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marc Haber | " Questions are the | Mailadresse im Header Rhein-Neckar, DE | Beginning of Wisdom " |
Nordisch by Nature | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fon: *49 6224 1600402
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