Re: [gentoo-dev] rfc: allow -1 for ACCT_USER_ID and ACCT_GROUP_ID in ::gentoo

[Michael Orlitzky <mjo@gentoo.org>]

On Sun, 2021-11-28 at 16:31 -0600, William Hubbs wrote:
> All,
> 
> I want to discuss why we ban -1 as the ACCT_USER_ID and ACCT_GROUP_ID setting
> for all acct-user and acct-group packages in ::gentoo.
> 
> Here are my thoughts about it.
> 
> - As Gordon pointed out, it isn't necessary for us to care about UIDS/GIDS
>   most of the time.

It's not for you. It's for end users. And you don't have to care about
them. Just pick any old number.


> - I realize that our settings are suggestions, but the values we can
>   suggest are not infinite. We have run out once, and it is only a matter of
>   time until we do again.

We did not run out. The council placed an arbitrary limit on them once,
and then had to raise their own arbitrary limit.

Nobody complaining about "running out" understands what the GLEP says.
If we ever hit 2^16 acct-group packages, feel free to reuse them, or
keep counting. Nothing bad will happen. The worst case scenario is
still better than if no hint was given at all.


> - If an end user needs to care about the UID/GID, they can easily override
>   the settings in make.conf.

The point of the feature is to encourage all new installs to have
consistent UIDs/GIDs by default, without user intervention. Your
suggestion does not solve the same problem, and requires more work to
not solve it.


> 
> Thoughts? In particular, I want to hear from folks who disagree with me
> about using -1 in the main tree for most packages.
> 

The only problem that anyone has put forth is one that does not exist.
UIDs and GIDs are still assigned dynamically in Gentoo. The number you
type in the ebuild is only a hint: it's the first number that will be
tried during the dynamic assignment. There is no limit on the number of
hints, and we will never run out because a conflict is never possible,
because the damned things are assigned dynamically.

Is there an actual problem?