Hello!

I am locking all debian pseudo users that I don't need (pseudo users are pre-defined users such as 'mail', 'uucp, 'nobody', etc...). The documentation of the base-passwd package (/usr/share/doc/base-passwd/users-and-groups.html) helped me on the way but this document is unfinished. Therefore my questions.

I would like to know what the users 'sync' and 'backup' are used for, anyone has a clue?

find / -user sync -print
find / -user backup -print
... tells me no files are owned by these users. Does this mean (with my current installation) I will never need these users?

Will setting the shell for pseudo-users to /bin/false only prevent login for those users or does it affect other functionalities as well?

kind regards,

No user runs under those names--those are reserved for daemons that perform those functions, if I remember correctly. In fact, there are a LOT of users in a default Debian installation that you will probably never use.