On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 12:08:32PM +0200, Enrico Scholz wrote:
> for Fedora Extras packages. We could make it start at 300 to be
less
> likely to conflict with random "useradd -r" done earlier.
Assigning fixed IDs in this range would violate LSB which states
| The system User IDs from 100 to 499 should be reserved for dynamic
| allocation by system administrators and post install scripts using
| useradd.
[
http://www.linuxbase.org/spec//book/LSB-generic/LSB-generic/uidrange.html]
Well, that leaves us with stuffing Extras system UIDs into 0-99, or
violating the above-500 space, which is worse. Note that the LSB doesn't say
"must" -- it says "should", so it's a recommendation, not a
requirement.
Since we've got a need that's not really covered, goint against this
recommendation is better than having the worse problem of dynamic system IDs
(a nightmare for upgrades and for enterprise deployment).
That's why it would be a bad idea when Fedora Extras claims fixed
UIDs
there. I agree with you that every large organisation has its assigned
UID ranges and it will not be possible to find a free range which can be
assigned to Fedora Extras.
Perhaps we could find such a range in the 32bit UID space which is allowed
by Linux; but I am not sure whether we cause portability problems.
OpenAFS makes this same (wrong) assumption that the higher numbers present
some sort of unused dumping ground. The 32-bit UID space isn't a bunch of
secret numbers for fun to play with. It's needed because some places
actually require that many accounts. Let's not go there.
--
Matthew Miller mattdm(a)mattdm.org <
http://www.mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux ------> <
http://linux.bu.edu/>
Current office temperature: 77 degrees Fahrenheit.