[Buildroot] [PATCH 1/3] support/scripts/mkusers: allow option for system uid/gid

From: Norbert Lange <nolange79@gmail.com>
To: buildroot@busybox.net
Subject: [Buildroot] [PATCH 1/3] support/scripts/mkusers: allow option for system uid/gid
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2020 23:29:24 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CADYdroMULeB=so8q27z1PfK2yFh+myhBV_Dm6+5+AJzqKFDhQA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20200915224701.5f096d97@windsurf.hq.k.grp>

Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@bootlin.com> schrieb am Di., 15. Sep.
2020, 22:47:

> Hello Norbert,
>
> On Mon, 13 Jan 2020 16:35:13 +0100
> Norbert Lange <nolange79@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Extend the mkusers script to allow -2 for uid/gid.
> > This value will take an identifier from the system range.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Norbert Lange <nolange79@gmail.com>
>
> Sorry for the long delay in getting back to you. We had an earlier
> proposal from Stephan Henningsen doing pretty much the same:
>
>
> https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/buildroot/patch/20191023211313.6758-1-stephan+buildroot at asklandd.dk/
>
> The argument of Stephan was pretty much beauty/consistency with what
> "most systems do" without much other arguments.
>
> However, based on your PATCH 2/3 and a reading of
> https://systemd.io/UIDS-GIDS/ it seems like systemd somehow cares about
> this system vs. normal user difference.
>
> Could you give some details about the *why* you did this change?
> Indeed, your commit log doesn't explain anything about the *why*.
>
> Also, could you compare your changes to mkusers with the ones proposed
> by Stephan? The ones proposed by Stephan looked quite a bit more
> complicated.
>
> Another (minor) question is: if we're going to go to this route of
> separating system and normal users, wouldn't it make sense to have -1
> identify system users, and -2 identify normal users? Indeed the vast
> majority (all?) Buildroot packages probably want to create system
> users, and they already use -1.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Thomas
> --
> Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Bootlin
> Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
> https://bootlin.com

Yeah, this was touched upon (both points), see [1].

System users exist as concept on all distros an observable effects are for
ex journald spawning a separate logging stream.

So no, it's not just cosmetics, and yes I'd make system user the default.

Norbert

[1] http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/buildroot/2020-February/273558.html

>
>
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