Arch Linux

lagagnon

Member

From: an Island in the Pacific...

Registered: 2009-12-10

Posts: 1,087

Website

Editing/tidying-up /etc/gshadow

I normally keep up with .pacnew files by using vimdiff, but my /etc/gshadow file has all sorts of extra lines at the bottom that are not in the latest /etc/gshadow files. Here is the stuff I am uncertain about :

polkitd:!::
ntp:!::
colord:!::
systemd-journal-gateway:!::
systemd-timesync:!::
systemd-network:!::
systemd-bus-proxy:!::
systemd-resolve:!::
input:!::
systemd-journal-remote:!!::
systemd-journal-upload:!!::
git:!::
proc:!::
nvidia-persistenced:!::
systemd-coredump:!!::

Can any of that be deleted?

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Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a dark room. Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Religion is looking for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there and shouting "I found it!". Science is looking for a black cat in a dark room with a flashlight.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,662

Re: Editing/tidying-up /etc/gshadow

You shouldn't those are users created by specific packages that might be needed for proper functionality of the corresponding packages (mostly daemons and special permissions). Most often the only time you should look into some kind of merging operation on the gshadow files is if the integrity check of the shadow.service fails.

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,523

Website

Re: Editing/tidying-up /etc/gshadow

You shouldn't directly edit the file - but you can check it's contents to see what users/groups can be removed.

Many packages create groups or even users that are left around after the package is removed.  This can even lead to warning messages during boot.  For example, if colord is no longer installed you can remove the colord user/group with userdel/groupdel.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

ukhippo

Member

From: Non-paged pool

Registered: 2014-02-21

Posts: 366

Re: Editing/tidying-up /etc/gshadow

The passwd, group and *shadow files that are provided by the filesystem package are for a brand new system, and so are invariably wrong for upgrades - so never replace existing files with the .pacnew files.
You can ignore the *shadow.pacnew files - fix up the passwd and group files first and if there were any changes use pwck and grpck to update the *shadow files.
As for passwd and group, pacman should have already added any new users/groups as part of the upgrade. You should keep any existing users/groups defined in your passwd/group files, so the only things in the .pacnew files you need to consider are changed entries - and then only the finger and shell information (you don't want to alter any group memberships). Those are best changed using chfn and chsh anyway.
I usually find there's nothing in the .pacnew files that has to be applied.