[Piuparts-devel] Bug#1095408: piuparts: inconsistent results between firebird3.0 and firebird4.0 wrt policy-rc.d

[Chris Hofstaedtler]

On Fri, Feb 07, 2025 at 08:53:33PM +0000, Damyan Ivanov wrote:
> На 7 февруари 2025 г. 15:01:50 ч. UTC, Chris Hofstaedtler <zeha at debian.org> написа:
> >> It is demonstrated by a recent failed test[1] of firebird3.0-server 
> >> (src:firebird3.0) during purge. When .postrm tries to remove the 'firebird' 
> >> user userdel fails because the service started during install is still running.
> >> 
> >> This demonstrates a bug in firebird3.0-server (service not stopped on package 
> >> remove), visible only when system services are managed via init.d.
> >
> >In any case firebird should not try to remove the user in the first
> >place.
> 
> Why not? It didn't before, but I added the removal (if the firebird user is a system user) in response to #1089791

Yeah I think this is misguided. Most of the time you cannot
guarantee no files exist on the filesystem owned by the user.
Later the uid will be reallocated to a new user, and then you've got
a real problem.

Apparently in this case you also cannot guarantee no programs are
still running as the user in question.

AFAIK most packages that create users also leave them on the system
for the stated reasons.

Chris