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#1 2021-02-11 13:52:56

probackup-nl
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From: Delft
Registered: 2017-11-15
Posts: 83
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[solved] "Creating user xyz (n/a)", what is the meaning of "(n/a) "?

Installing packages with pacman sometimes echo's

Creating system user accounts...
Creating user "username" (n/a) with uid XXX and gid YYY

What does this "n/a" mean?

Last edited by probackup-nl (2021-02-11 15:24:14)

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#2 2021-02-11 15:10:04

ayekat
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Registered: 2011-01-17
Posts: 1,589

Re: [solved] "Creating user xyz (n/a)", what is the meaning of "(n/a) "?

probackup-nl wrote:

What does this "n/a" mean?

In general, it means https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N/A

In this context, it's systemd-sysusers that displays that information (you can grep /usr/share/libalpm/hooks for "Creating system user accounts" to see which hook (and ultimately which hook command) is run there).

If you then search Google a little, you see that the corresponding code is in systemd's src/sysusers/sysusers.c:

log_info("Creating user %s (%s) with uid " UID_FMT " and gid " GID_FMT ".", i->name, strna(i->description), i->uid, i->gid);

i->description is set a little further up in the same file:

r = free_and_strdup(&i->description, p->pw_gecos);

The GECOS information is the 5th column in a user's passwd entry. Unless it is set to something specific, it's usually empty, in which case I assume systemd transforms that information to "n/a" there.


pkgshackscfgblag

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#3 2021-02-11 15:23:59

probackup-nl
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From: Delft
Registered: 2017-11-15
Posts: 83
Website

Re: [solved] "Creating user xyz (n/a)", what is the meaning of "(n/a) "?

@ayekat Thanks for your rapid and qualitative reply and the included hyperlinks. smile
I can follow your steps. Although I have too little knowledge (yet) to figure this all out by myself.

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