From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mark H Weaver Subject: bug#19795: Allow for stateless users and groups in GuixSD Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2015 22:07:59 -0500 Message-ID: <87iofd14og.fsf@netris.org> References: <20150207091023.GA12524@debian> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42496) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKIF7-0000MP-Q3 for bug-guix@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Feb 2015 22:09:06 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKIF4-0006O0-Hr for bug-guix@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Feb 2015 22:09:05 -0500 Received: from debbugs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.43]:45761) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YKIF4-0006NW-El for bug-guix@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Feb 2015 22:09:02 -0500 Received: from Debian-debbugs by debbugs.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1YKIF4-00068e-8W for bug-guix@gnu.org; Sat, 07 Feb 2015 22:09:02 -0500 Sender: "Debbugs-submit" Resent-Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20150207091023.GA12524@debian> (Andreas Enge's message of "Sat, 7 Feb 2015 10:10:23 +0100") List-Id: Bug reports for GNU Guix List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-guix-bounces+gcggb-bug-guix=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: bug-guix-bounces+gcggb-bug-guix=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Andreas Enge Cc: 19795@debbugs.gnu.org Andreas Enge writes: > I agree, it is rather surprising that removing a user does not remove it. > So I think it should be fully stateless (as long as the user's home > directory is not erased, of course; so this should remain as a state and > be reactivated once the user is available again, which could cause problems > with user names vs. numbers). If we do this, I think we should take steps to prevent users+groups from being added, removed, group memberships changed, setting of passwords, etc, outside of 'guix system reconfigure'. I think that users will be very unhappy with us if commands like 'passwd' and 'useradd' work as expected, but are undone the next time they update their system. My position is that we should support both stateful or stateless operation for some aspects of our configuration. For example, consider wireless network configuration. Most casual users want this to be stateful. They will want to be able to use a nice GUI applet to connect to a wireless network, and have the system remember the authentication info and to connect to that network automatically in the future, etc. I don't want GuixSD to forget that information the next time I update, or if I roll-back, etc. However, for some applications it may be preferable to have the wireless configuration completely stateless and specified in the OS config, e.g. for a headless server that's connected via wireless. I think it's the same way with users+groups. For my personal system, I might want to be able to add a user without updating its software at the same time (which might involve a lot of downloading and/or compiling), and I don't want the new user to be erased if I roll-back. Even for many kinds of servers, I don't think it makes sense to tie the users+groups to the system configuration. Most of the time I don't want that. But for some other kinds of servers, I think I would want it. So, I think we should support both modes. My two cents... Mark