Subject: Re: _pflogd user
To: Hubert Feyrer <hubert@feyrer.de>
From: SODA Noriyuki <soda@sra.co.jp>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 09/10/2004 20:42:56
>>>>> On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:25:29 +0200 (CEST),
	Hubert Feyrer <hubert@feyrer.de> said:

>> But I don't think we have to rename existing ones, in that case,
>> there won't be any problem with upgrading.

> Um, being consistent in either way sounds like a worthwhile goal to me.
> And as little as I'd object to the leading _, that would mean renaming a
> bunch of existing accounts then.

I agree that being consistent is a good goal.
But I think we shouldn't rename some existing system users like
"news", "games", "postfix", etc. Those names are widely used among
varous operating systems, so it's better to keep those names as is.
We don't have to worry about the conflict for those names anyway.

But for new names, especially not so common among varous operating
systems, it's better to have particular name space.

> How do other systems (FreeBSD, various Linuxes, Solaris, ...) handle the
> situation?

I don't see any convention on FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris 9, at least.
So, "_" is just fine for me.

BTW, FreeBSD uses the "_pflogd" user for pflogd, too.
So, even if we don't use the "_" convention, it's better to use
"_pflogd" for compatibility with both FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
--
soda