Bug#333706: [Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#333706: useradd lacks -r option

[Christian Perrier]

(Matt, I need more input from someone who better knows LSB than
me. Please look at #333706 and add your thoughts here...or point
someone you would know having a deeper background about LSB to this bug)

> > Anyway, I don't really follow your reasoning, Tomasz. Do you actually
> > reject this suggestion with a kind of "this is Linux specific sh*t"
> > reasoning...or do you consider it?
> 
> This is your words .. not mine :)
> Mine is "this is RH specific sh*t" :>

LSB is not Redhat baby.

> Summarize: -r useradd option duplicates some long time avaialible shadow 
> functionalities (groupadd/useradd -O option was avalaible IIRC allways in 
> shadow but was not documented).

I think that the point of LSB is to guarantee that all Linux
distribution tools comply to a common ground of utilities. Having a
common way for all useradd implementations to guarantee there exists
an option to add a "system" user is an obvious requirement. I don't
have the details of "-O" as noone took care of even documenting it so
I actually can't tell....I just suspect it needs some arguments so as
the minimum or maximum UIDs.....

The point of "-r" is not requiring arguments at all. The exact range
may be distribution specific but the single switch guarantees for
instance a software vendor that using "useradd -r <user>" will be a
portable way to add a system user to any LSB-compliant distro.