3 ms·

What's with the leading underscore? That seems rather unprecedented. Is there some standard that BSD is setting for this?

qalmakka 3y ago
It's probably to avoid conflicting with potentially existing user-defined groups. The underscore in the C/UNIX world has an intrinsic meaning of "implementation reserved", so it's your fault if the new group conflicts with one you improperly created yourself.
- SuperSandro2000 3y ago
  Some other software can think the exact same thing.
  - Tildey 3y ago
    This is why I only name users, groups, directories, etc, with UUIDs
  - Karellen 3y ago
    "Some other software" that uses/adds users and groups on the system, is not part of the implementation of users and groups in the system.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Canada 3y ago
All of the system group names that own resources for specific applications have been underscore prefixed for years... like ... _bgpd:*:75: _tcpdump:*:76: _dhcp:*:77: _mopd:*:78: _tftpd:*:79: _rbootd:*:80: _ppp:*:82: _ntp:*:83: _ftp:*:84: _ospfd:*:85: _hostapd:*:86: ... but not the general ones like wheel, sys, daemon, tty, nobody, etc.
- 5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
  Prefix code blocks by two spaces. Now I wonder why my FreeBSD systems use underscores for some groups, but only a few of them. $ grep ^_ /etc/group _pflogd:*:64: _dhcp:*:65: _ypldap:*:160:
  - Canada 3y ago
    Yeah thanks, I edited that like 10 times dealing with escaping the asterisks with backslash, adding the two spaces, removing the escaping, newlines, etc :)
  - notaplumber1 3y ago
    All of those are examples of privilege seperated software imported from OpenBSD, pf and thus pflogd(8), dhclient(8) and yplapd(8). https://www.openbsd.org/innovations.html https://www.openbsd.org/innovations.html
- ninjin 3y ago
  If I recall correctly, all system groups should have a leading underscore for OpenBSD. However, they make exceptions for groups that have been around long before this became their standard.
daneel_w 3y ago
It's to set system applications' resources aside, and it's more of an OpenBSD thing than a *BSD thing. Once in a blue moon you'll see it in the Linux and general *nix world as well: _chrony:x:112: <- Debian
- johnklos 3y ago
  It's a majority of the BSDs. NetBSD: _pflogd:*:18: _rwhod:*:19: _proxy:*:21: _timedc:*:22: _sdpd:*:23: _httpd:*:24: _mdnsd:*:25: _tests:*:26: _tcpdump:*:27: _tss:*:28: _gpio:*:29: _rtadvd:*:30: _unbound:*:32: _nsd:*:33: _dhcpcd:*:35:
- ChoHag 3y ago
  [dead]
- rfmoz 3y ago
  Debian, in their Policy 4.5.0 said: "When maintainers choose a new hardcoded or dynamically generated username for packages to use, they should start this username with an underscore." https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/upgrading-checklist.html#version-4-5-0 https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/upgrading-checklist...

qalmakka 3y ago

It's probably to avoid conflicting with potentially existing user-defined groups. The underscore in the C/UNIX world has an intrinsic meaning of "implementation reserved", so it's your fault if the new group conflicts with one you improperly created yourself.

SuperSandro2000 3y ago
Some other software can think the exact same thing.
- Tildey 3y ago
  This is why I only name users, groups, directories, etc, with UUIDs
- Karellen 3y ago
  "Some other software" that uses/adds users and groups on the system, is not part of the implementation of users and groups in the system.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Canada 3y ago

All of the system group names that own resources for specific applications have been underscore prefixed for years... like ... _bgpd:*:75: _tcpdump:*:76: _dhcp:*:77: _mopd:*:78: _tftpd:*:79: _rbootd:*:80: _ppp:*:82: _ntp:*:83: _ftp:*:84: _ospfd:*:85: _hostapd:*:86: ... but not the general ones like wheel, sys, daemon, tty, nobody, etc.

5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
Prefix code blocks by two spaces. Now I wonder why my FreeBSD systems use underscores for some groups, but only a few of them. $ grep ^_ /etc/group _pflogd:*:64: _dhcp:*:65: _ypldap:*:160:
- Canada 3y ago
  Yeah thanks, I edited that like 10 times dealing with escaping the asterisks with backslash, adding the two spaces, removing the escaping, newlines, etc :)
- notaplumber1 3y ago
  All of those are examples of privilege seperated software imported from OpenBSD, pf and thus pflogd(8), dhclient(8) and yplapd(8). https://www.openbsd.org/innovations.html https://www.openbsd.org/innovations.html
ninjin 3y ago
If I recall correctly, all system groups should have a leading underscore for OpenBSD. However, they make exceptions for groups that have been around long before this became their standard.

daneel_w 3y ago

It's to set system applications' resources aside, and it's more of an OpenBSD thing than a *BSD thing. Once in a blue moon you'll see it in the Linux and general *nix world as well: _chrony:x:112: <- Debian

johnklos 3y ago
It's a majority of the BSDs. NetBSD: _pflogd:*:18: _rwhod:*:19: _proxy:*:21: _timedc:*:22: _sdpd:*:23: _httpd:*:24: _mdnsd:*:25: _tests:*:26: _tcpdump:*:27: _tss:*:28: _gpio:*:29: _rtadvd:*:30: _unbound:*:32: _nsd:*:33: _dhcpcd:*:35:
ChoHag 3y ago
[dead]
rfmoz 3y ago
Debian, in their Policy 4.5.0 said: "When maintainers choose a new hardcoded or dynamically generated username for packages to use, they should start this username with an underscore." https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/upgrading-checklist.html#version-4-5-0 https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/upgrading-checklist...