Adduser devel - Jul 2007 - Bug#432562: adduser --system allow uppercase in usernames without --force-badname

Package: adduser
Version: 3.103

Several packages have started creating system users whose names
contain uppercase letters.  These names for system users have some
advantages over normal names, particularly:
 * It is easy to tell such a system user from a normal user even
   if it uses a normal-user-range uid and has a per-user group.
 * Mail delivery systems etc. typically won''t deliver to such
   users (because they lowercase the name before lookup)
 * These names do not clash with names created for normal users
   because normal user-creation tools refuse to create them.
 * Most other tools behave properly with usernames containing
   capitals.

Currently packages that create system users with any uppercase letters
in the name need to pass --force-badname to adduser.  This is not
ideal; for example, it gives package maintainers the idea that a name
with a capital letter is not significantly better than one containing
punctuation, top-bit-set octets, etc.

I propose that we relax this restriction.  The attached patch causes
adduser to allow uppercase letters but only if --system is specified.
(This is achieved by a separate NAME_REGEX_SYSTEM config option.)

FYI, this is being deployed in Ubuntu as adduser 3.103ubuntu1.

Ian.

Hi

On Tue, Jul 10, 2007 at 04:22:14PM +0100, Ian Jackson
wrote:
> Several packages have started creating system users whose names
> contain uppercase letters.  These names for system users have some
> advantages over normal names, particularly:
>  * It is easy to tell such a system user from a normal user even
>    if it uses a normal-user-range uid and has a per-user group.

System users shouldn''t use the normal user range. But in order to use
this
range, they have to be created as normal user (but then without capitals).
>  * Mail delivery systems etc. typically won''t deliver to such
>    users (because they lowercase the name before lookup)
>  * Most other tools behave properly with usernames containing
>    capitals.
I don''t know if some tools may not cope with it.

> Currently packages that create system users with any uppercase letters
> in the name need to pass --force-badname to adduser.  This is not
> ideal; for example, it gives package maintainers the idea that a name
> with a capital letter is not significantly better than one containing
> punctuation, top-bit-set octets, etc.
To be honest: it isn''t :-)
> I propose that we relax this restriction.  The attached patch causes
> adduser to allow uppercase letters but only if --system is specified.
> (This is achieved by a separate NAME_REGEX_SYSTEM config option.)
> 
> FYI, this is being deployed in Ubuntu as adduser 3.103ubuntu1.
The first point is the one that counts most (at least in my eyes).

I think the best solution would be to postpone this patch for while and
wait for the experiences which ubuntu will have with it.


J?rg

-- 
What did you do to the cat? It looks half-dead. -Schroedinger''s wife
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tags 432562 +wontfix
thanks
This one time, at band camp, Ian Jackson said:
> 
> Several packages have started creating system users whose names
> contain uppercase letters.  
I only know of Debian-exim.  Are there others?
> These names for system users have some advantages over normal names, 
> particularly:
>  * It is easy to tell such a system user from a normal user even
>    if it uses a normal-user-range uid and has a per-user group.
This would be a bug in the maintainer scripts for creating a system user
in the user range.
>  * Mail delivery systems etc. typically won''t deliver to such
>    users (because they lowercase the name before lookup)
This is a problem.  Normally system accounts get their email redirected
to a real user via /etc/aliases - if we start creating system accounts
with names that the MTA won''t deliver, then we risk losing status email
from the services.  This seem like a bad plan, and is in fact, the main
argument I can see against this idea.
>  * These names do not clash with names created for normal users
>    because normal user-creation tools refuse to create them.
Isn''t this precisely what you are asking us to change?
>  * Most other tools behave properly with usernames containing
>    capitals.
Do you know which currently fail?  If any reasonably common pieces of
software misbehave with usernames like this, that is a fairly strong
argument for leaving things as they are, until the software is patched
to not do badly.
> Currently packages that create system users with any uppercase letters
> in the name need to pass --force-badname to adduser.  This is not
> ideal; for example, it gives package maintainers the idea that a name
> with a capital letter is not significantly better than one containing
> punctuation, top-bit-set octets, etc.
Which it seems, from the above, is correct.
> I propose that we relax this restriction.  The attached patch causes
> adduser to allow uppercase letters but only if --system is specified.
> (This is achieved by a separate NAME_REGEX_SYSTEM config option.)
> 
> FYI, this is being deployed in Ubuntu as adduser 3.103ubuntu1.
I await feedback about how the experiment with upper case names goes.
For now, I think I am going to be conservative, sorry.
-- 
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
|   ,''''`.                                            Stephen
Gran |
|  : :'' :                                        sgran at debian.org |
|  `. `''                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
|    `-                                     http://www.debian.org |
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Processing commands for control at bugs.debian.org:
> tags 432562 +wontfix
Bug#432562: adduser --system allow uppercase in usernames without
--force-badname
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Tags added: wontfix
> thanks
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