Cliff Sarginson wrote:
On Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 05:19:10AM -0700, Monte Milanuk wrote:
Hello!
I am working on a machine and I did a minimal, bare-bones install (i.e. I selected the 'Minimum' profile, and then started paring from there. About the only thing I _added_ was harden_suse. I was somewhat disconcerted to find that there was still entries in the passwd file for just about every system daemon/ program that's feasible under SuSE, which is quite a few. Granted, these accounts are all deactivated, I presume, if the associated programs are not installed. Is there a 'good' way to purge these from the files, other than using yast or an editor? In the past I think I've had problems where I removed all the accounts I didn't think I used, and when I later installed software that should have had an account entry for the daemon or something, it didn't do it on it's own, and I had a lot of heartburn trying to figure it all out.
You have answered your own questions. Leave them there, for goodness sake what harm are they doing ? They are not taking up space ! Why do people mess so and make things awkward for themselves later.
People may have security concerns about 'unused' users on their systems. I also think it bloats the configuration file. If you find a system or user account that you don't want, it is better in the first instance to lock the account with: passwd -l <username> You can then unlock the account again with: passwd -u <username> You'll be glad to hear that SuSE does this for you. All system accounts like named, amamnda, ftp, etc. are locked already, so you have nothing to worry about - people trying to break into your system will not be able to get in by 'brute force' on system accounts. Just leave them be, and there shouldn't be a problem.
Anyone else have experience w/ this?
Also, as far as making it so new user directories aren't filled w/ stuff that I don't need, just edit the /etc/skel/ directory, correct?
More to the point add/modify things you need. What is it you want to get rid of ?
Bye, Chris -- __ _ -o)/ / (_)__ __ ____ __ Chris Reeves /\\ /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / ICQ# 22219005 _\_v __/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\