system account or user account???

yenonn · 02-12-2004, 06:35 PM

hi,

i want to know what is the difference btw system account and user account. basically, i know what is user account meant. but, what is the purpose of having system account? and HOW can i create it?

thanks

tangle · 02-12-2004, 06:53 PM

I believe that a system account is a account that a program/deamon starts and/or uses to run. Instead of running bind under root you can use the bind accout to run the process. This way if someone expoilts a bug in bind they will not gain root priviledges (in theory).

sugar2 · 05-10-2006, 06:23 PM

how can I create the system account in slackware?

tahnks

Penguin of Wonder · 05-10-2006, 06:45 PM

I'm not real sure, a "system account" really exists. Here's some good reading on it.
http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-pol...rsys.html#s9.2
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/sy...min-users.html

sugar2 · 05-10-2006, 07:08 PM

Im installing nut-2.0.3.tar.gz
and in the instructions it says this:

4. Create the "ups" user. The driver and daemon will run with this user id.

useradd -r ups

(its a system account) but this command doesnt work in slackware, or i dont know its equivalent.
for references see: http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~selinger/ups/backups.html

sugar2 · 05-10-2006, 07:27 PM

well, Pat Volkerding just toldme that i just need to remove the -r

Penguin of Wonder · 05-10-2006, 07:49 PM

There is no difference in the method you created the account "ups" with than you would use to create any other user account with. You just didn't give the ups any file permissions. Which is smart.

Friends with Pat huh?