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I removed some installed packages with pacman -Rns some time ago.
While wandering through my system I found now some leftovers, which I had to clean-up by myself:
sudo userdel lxdm
sudo userdel sddm
sudo userdel dnsmasq
They were automatically created by those packages - I expected pacman to clean them up too while using -Rns ?
Did I miss something here ?
Thanks for all hints.
Last edited by ua4000 (2018-12-17 18:20:52)
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Nope. The users are created via a file in /usr/lib/sysusers.d/ which belongs to the package. At each boot, this file ensures the user exists, and instructs systemd to create it if it does not. When you remove the package, this file is removed. So from then on there will be nothing recreating the user if it is missing, but this does not remove the existing user.
"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" - Richard Stallman
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Thanks very much for the clarification.
In case of sddm, the provided sddm.sysusers is the one which instructs systemd to create the "sddm" user ?
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Yes usr/lib/sysusers.d/sddm.conf
See also https://www.archlinux.org/todo/usergroup-management/ and `man 8 systemd-sysusers`
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We stopped doing userdel a long time ago due to https://www.archlinux.org/todo/usergroup-management/
tl;dr It's a security risk to remove the users automatically, and they don't really cause any harm.
Managing AUR repos The Right Way -- aurpublish (now a standalone tool)
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Thanks very much!
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...they don't really cause any harm.
If you remove (for example) the git package, it causes to fail shadow.service, because /usr/bin/git-shell has been removed.
Last edited by Tarqi (2018-12-17 22:00:24)
Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment. ~Lao Tse
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eschwartz wrote:...they don't really cause any harm.
If you remove (for example) the git package, it causes to fail shadow.service, because /usr/bin/git-shell has been removed.
Which doesn't cause any harm.
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Tarqi wrote:eschwartz wrote:...they don't really cause any harm.
If you remove (for example) the git package, it causes to fail shadow.service, because /usr/bin/git-shell has been removed.
Which doesn't cause any harm.
Instead of explaining why this is just your opinion: You've won, I'm out.
Last edited by Tarqi (2018-12-17 23:16:17)
Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment. ~Lao Tse
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That was an odd reaction. It was a simple statement of fact*. If you wanted further clarification, ask for it. Some of us around here are occasionally rather abrupt, but there was no way to interpret this comment of Scimmia's as anything of the sort.
*I.e., it was a factual statement that may be true or false. If you have evidence that it is false - if you have seen harmful results - you'd certainly be welcome to disagree.
Last edited by Trilby (2018-12-17 23:43:27)
"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" - Richard Stallman
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It could be argued that once such a situation has occurred there is not utility offered by shadow.service.
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