[SOLVED] ghost user?

lamdacore · 2010-11-22 02:36:30

I recently found another home directory for a user called "news".
I didn't add it. Could it come from something I installed? (I remember installing texlive core recently and emacs)
But otherwise I dont know where this showed up from.

Thanks.

in /etc/passwd

news:x:999:999::/home/news:/bin/bash

in /etc/group

news:x:999:

Last edited by lamdacore (2010-11-22 04:06:01)

Allan · 2010-11-22 03:34:46

> cd /var/abs
> grep -R "news" $(find . -name *.install) | grep useradd
./community/inn/inn.install:    grep -e "^news:" /etc/passwd 2>&- >&- || useradd -r -m -g news news 2>&- >&-
./community/leafnode/leafnode.install:  useradd -u $gid -g news -d /var/spool/news -s /bin/false news &>/dev/null

Did you install "leafnode" or "inn"?

lamdacore · 2010-11-22 03:54:48

Yes I was playing with inn a month back! But don't have it installed now.

Also thanks for the

> cd /var/abs
> grep -R "news" $(find . -name *.install) | grep useradd

I was wondering how to find that information out, using the abs didn't occur to me.

So whats a "clean" way to remove the news user/group?

lamdacore · 2010-11-22 04:05:38

I did the following for now after reading the man pages:

 userdel -r news

Please correct me if this is wrong or there is a nicer way of doing this!

cheers.

Allan · 2010-11-22 06:15:41

That seems fine. Normally a package would remove a user or group it adds once you are no longer using it but I guess that is a bit risky with a common name like "news".

Arch Linux

#1 2010-11-22 02:36:30

[SOLVED] ghost user?

#2 2010-11-22 03:34:46

Re: [SOLVED] ghost user?

#3 2010-11-22 03:54:48

Re: [SOLVED] ghost user?

#4 2010-11-22 04:05:38

Re: [SOLVED] ghost user?

#5 2010-11-22 06:15:41

Re: [SOLVED] ghost user?

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