On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 4:18 AM, Camaleón <noela...@gmail.com> wrote: > 12.1.12.1 Are all system users necessary? > http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/ch12.en.html#s-faq-os-users
I guess I'm still puzzled. That link is a great explanation to what each user does and it's fairly common sense that not every daemon should and will run as the 'root' user. My question or issue with Debian is if I do a fresh 'minimal' installation using the 'netinst' or 'business card' ISO, that gives me basically a bare minimal installation. There is no need to explain what every user is used for because in my opinion, it's fairly obvious that 'www-data' is used for a web server. My question is why do these users get pre-loaded when there is nothing on my minimal system that would ever require the need for them? I understand if I install Apache, then there would be a new user added based on that dependency as would I expect to see a MySQL user or Postfix user if I did eventually decide to load those respective softwares on my server. The question or confusion is that I didn't load any of the software those users depend on so why do developers just add them to a base install? I disagree and in fact can prove that the users are 'orphaned' simply because if you decide to delete / remove the user 'www-data' using the 'userdel -r' switch, it deletes the user but returns and error that '/var/www' can't be deleted because it doesn't exist. Of course it doesn't exist...I never installed Apache so why would there be a '/var/www' directory or for that matter a 'www-data' user in '/etc/passwd'? That in my eyes means those accounts are useless and orphaned since their assigned home directories don't even exist. Can anyone please clarify? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktim7yw2d8pc2gxgbv6u9xf1_=b-milus54a8e...@mail.gmail.com
