[systemd-devel] Custom nobody user/group name not equivalent

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mi, 17.04.24 17:17, Opty (opty77 at gmail.com) wrote:

> Hello,
>
> when using
>
> -8<-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>   -Dnobody-user=overflowuid \
>   -Dnobody-group=overflowgid \
> -8<-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> in Slackware I got
>
> -8<-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ../meson.build:1081: WARNING:
> The configured user name "overflowuid" and group name "overflowgid" of
> the nobody user/group are not equivalent.
> Please re-check that both "nobody-user" and "nobody-group" options are
> correctly set.
> -8<-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> because of
>
> -8<-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> commit 8374cc623579e57ae79b62fce2f11627957148e2
> Author: Yu Watanabe <watanabe.yu+github at gmail.com>
> Date:   Thu Dec 7 17:19:11 2017 +0900
>
>     meson: warn if nobody-user and nobody-group are set to different name
>
>     It may work, but is very strange. So, let's warn about that.
>
>     v2:
>     Debian uses nobody and nogroup. Do not warn such case.
> -8<-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Why do you find different names "very strange" but allow Debian to use
> nobody and nogroup?

This is a place where distros should not depart from each
other. Calling the user "nobody" and the group the same is simply the
least surprising thing: it's comonly understood that user's which have
their own matching groups should also name them the same
way. Derparting from that rule just to be different is just annoying.

This is a warning, to push distros to just stop trying to be different
in this corner case, it's a waste of brain cells having to deal with
pointless differences like this everywhere.

let me turn this around: why do you think it's a great idea for
slackware being its own thing and naming these groups completely
differently for everyone?

Lennart

--
Lennart Poettering, Berlin