[OE-core] [PATCHv2 1/1] Revert "useradd.bbclass: remove user/group created by the package in clean* task"

[Maxin B. John]

Hi Peter,

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 03:14:09PM +0000, Peter Kjellerstedt wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Richard Purdie [mailto:richard.purdie at linuxfoundation.org]
> > Sent: den 13 april 2016 13:05
> > To: Peter Kjellerstedt; Otavio Salvador
> > Cc: OE Core (openembedded-core at lists.openembedded.org)
> > Subject: Re: [OE-core] [PATCHv2 1/1] Revert "useradd.bbclass: remove
> > user/group created by the package in clean* task"
> > 
> > I am pretty frustrated with this thread. The reasons are perhaps not
> > immediately obvious though.
> > 
> > The issue is that there are only a limited number of people who
> > actually dive in and try and fix some of the underlying "core
> > architecture" bugs. There is what I believe to be a pretty good patch
> > here which does fix real world issues which have been reported into the
> > bugzilla (its related to at least two bug reports). As such it has been
> > seen as a bugfix. Its now clear it does have some side effects which
> > weren't envisaged, some causing issues for a small number of meta-oe
> > recipes, the others breaking a companies internal code.
> > 
> > Otavio wants it deferred to 2.2, Peter wants it abandoned entirely.
> > 
> > If I revert this, Peter is then happy and has zero incentive to do
> > anything further. The pressure is still on the reopened bugs to try and
> > fix this somehow and falls back to the usual suspects. There is a real
> > world usability problem there.
> 
> Hold your horses. I definitely see the problem the change tried to 
> address as one that needs to be fixed, and I am already looking at 
> how to solve this properly (currently based on my second suggested 
> solution). However, I do not know if I can fix it in time for Krogoth. 
> Which is why I agree with Otavio that the change was introduced too 
> late in the process, especially as it causes breakage for existing 
> users.

As the author of that patch, I am responsible for that regression and would 
like to assist in fixing that particular problem. As you can see, I had no
option to test your particular scenario as that recipe was not part of my oe-core 
"world" build test. RP has already sent a patch to fix the "cyrus-sasl" recipe
which had some troubles with this change.

> > In a single isolated case, fine, we'd figure a way through this. I
> > think I'm so frustrated as we see this all the time. Making a change to
> > the core architecture is hard and gets ever harder, then we wonder why
> > we don't have contributors. Part of this is having so many different
> > workflows and corner cases.
> > 
> > I have pushed very hard to have more test cases, then its easier to
> > determine if a patch causes regressions. Again though, few people are
> > contributing to them outside the usual suspects.
> 
> Here I must show my lack of knowledge. How and where should I go about 
> adding a regression test that verifies the support for that multiple 
> recipes can add the same user/group? Since this does not test a 
> specific recipe, but rather a part of the build framework, I do not 
> know if, e.g., ptest is applicable (of which I have no experience 
> either).

Just want to let you know that I am interested in working together to fix this one.
As per my understanding, you have a library and an application, which depends on that 
library. Both these packages creates the same user. 

At this point, a package manager (eg: smart) doesn't remove the users when we remove the package.
However, I am not sure about the situation where a package manager removes the users added by a 
package when we remove it from the target device. In that case,wouldn't the removal of application, 
remove the user which the library depends on ?

Best Regards,
Maxin