messagebus user

[jef moskot]

On Wed, 27 Aug 2008, Dan Nelson wrote:
> You should be able to change its uid by deinstalling dbus, then editing 
> /usr/ports/devel/dbus/pkg-install, changing the uid in that script to an 
> unused ID, and reinstalling.

That worked fine, thanks.  Still don't know what this thing does (the 
things dependent on it seemed either irrelevant or mysterious), but I'm 
happy to resolve the issue this way.

> All the userids created by ports should be listed in /usr/ports/UIDs and 
> GIDs, so you can check to see if any other ports might conflict with 
> existing users.

Interesting, thanks again.

On Wed, 27 Aug 2008, Chris St Denis wrote:
> Keep in mind you will probably have the same problem when you upgrade 
> the port. Portsnap/csup will overwrite your change so every time you 
> upgrade you'll have to change it again.

This might not be an issue due to the explanation from Warren below.

> May be easier to just change the user's UID once.

The user has been around longer than FreeBSD has existed and the UID is 
used across various system with different OSs, so the reinstall was 
actually the simpler solution.

On Wed, 27 Aug 2008, Warren Block wrote:
> If dbus is required, you should be able to create the messagebus user 
> before installing the dbus port.  Then the port's pkg-install should see 
> that you already have a messagebus user and use it instead of creating a 
> new one. (Untested, but it seems like that's worked for upgrading dbus.)

Out of curiosity, I tested this theory and it's correct.

Are there any files out there that messagebus is expected to own that I 
should double-check after the reinstallation?

Thanks to everyone for all the good advice.

Jeffrey Moskot
System Administrator
jef at math.miami.edu