> > It would be nice to have a standard set of account details for
> > pkgsrc packages, or if that would be a nightmare to set up (as I think
> > it probably would be), allow each site to specify this at package
> > build time somehow (this may already be possible and I'm not aware of
> > it)
> Have a look at the Debian Policy Manual at 
> http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-opersys.html for some ideas. 
> Here is a summary:
> 
> - Some UIDs and GIDs are reserved globally for use by certain packages.
> 
> - UIDs and GIDs 0-99 are the same on every Debian system.
> 
> - a "Debian" base-passwd maintainer is responsible for allocating these.
> 
> - UIDs and GIDs 100-999 are also system accounts, but allocated
>    dynamically.

I like these ideas very much.  I've been thinking of similar ideas:

- pkgsrc reserves a range (length) of PIDs/GIDs (e.g. 1000 would be
  enough).

- pkgsrc assigns PIDs/GIDs, starting from 0, for each package which
  needs them.  These will be offsets.

- pkgsrc lets users choose the base PID/GID.  Real UIDs/PIDs pkg_add
  uses are the user-defined base + packages' PID/UID offsets.

Masao