[ On Sunday, October 6, 2002 at 15:17:47 (-0700), Bill Studenmund wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Adding support for commented-out password entries
>
> Make a password file template. That way we can list "NetBSD default"
> special purpose accounts (news, etc.). If you want them, you enable them
> and get the same UID everyone else does (that doesn't change it). If you
> don't, you don't.

OK, I can sort of buy that, but I'll bet it ends up causing a whole lot
more confusion and mis-use than exists now without this feature,
especially if it remains a NetBSD-unique feature.

Sys admins have been dealing with pre-assigned system accounts for
nearly 30 years or so -- I don't see why they can't continue to do so.

It's not as if there's any shortage of UID#s for "end use" or even
any shortage of user-names.....

(yes, clashes with homogenous systems in NFS clusters and such is
another story, but...)

I do note that FreeBSD now (in 4.7-RC at least) allow comments with a
leading '#' (and blank lines), and while that's equally silly IMO for
the master.passwd file where it can too easily be abused, it does allow
them to put an RCS Id string in there and thus make quicker work of
source upgrade merges with their mergemaster, which is like NetBSD's new
postinstall:

     Lines whose first non-whitespace character is a pound-sign (#) are com-
     ments, and are ignored.  Blank lines which consist only of spaces, tabs
     or newlines are also ignored.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

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