On Tue, 8 Nov 2005, Malcolm Herbert wrote:

> one thing that really really really annoys me is that users created
> for packages are given uids in the order that the packages are installed.
>
> Makes things really hard to keep machines in sync if you install the
> same packages, but forget the order in which you'd done it ...
>
> 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.

Here is a list of users pkgsrc uses (not including root or bin):

_ntp
_pflogd
_spamd
alias
asterisk
backup
bacula-dir
bacula-sd
bitlbee
clamav
courier
cups
cvmlog
cyrus
daemon (too generic I think -- is used by canna)
defang
dirmngr
distcc
dnslog
dovecot
dspam
fax
gale
games
gld
gnats
gopher
hobbit
howl
icecast
irc
ircd
jabberd
jitter (UID 509)
lambdamoo
lp
majordom
mail
mailman
messagebus
mldonkey
monotone
mydns
mysql
named
netdisco
netsaint
news
nullmail
nut
perforce
pgsql
pks
pop
popa3d
postfix
postgrey
prayer
privoxy
quagga
reed
samba
screws
sfs
sgeadmin
silcd
smmsp
snort
spread
squid
sshd
sshd (UID 16)
sympa
tinyproxy
tofmipd
tor
ubs
uucp
vscan
vsftpd
wnn
www
zope3

Some have UIDs that they prefer, but I didn't list them all here.

Should we decide on whay UIDs to use?

Should we have a policy for this?

  Jeremy C. Reed

  	  	 	 BSD News, BSD tutorials, BSD links
 	  	 	 http://www.bsdnewsletter.com/