[hahainternet]

> The fact the software doesn't do what any sensible user would expect is completely irrelevant to Poettering.

Logs and error and continues? I think you're confused by Systemd exposing all sorts of frailties of traditional software. How do you propose that it differentiate between UIDs and user names?

[hug]

By using a different setting name for UIDs and usernames, or by prepending UIDs with a +, or...

That's not the problem, though. The problem is that systemd encounters a username setting, and the workaround decided upon was that if you find an explicitly stated username setting, that the best thing to do in the case of that explicity stated username being something you consider invalid (despite it being completely valid on the largest platform you target) is to throw that statement away and proceed as the highest privileged user on the system, even though the very intent of the username setting is often to restrict privileges. It tells you about it in a log file, though, that you'll definitely see before it's too late!

Even that poorly thought out situation being the status quo isn't the problem. The problem is refusing to consider that this is perhaps not the best workaround, prior to this workaround becoming a de facto standard embedded by practice.

This isn't an us-versus-them thing. It's not about being combative or saying that anyone is wrong or bad. It's about looking for continual improvement.

[garaetjjte]

>How do you propose that it differentiate between UIDs and user names?

Maybe follow GNU coreutils, prefix ids with + https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/Disa...

[hahainternet]

I wasn't really asking for a suggestion, more pointing out that it isn't some previously solved and agreed upon issue.

It's something that has to be picked, and the parent poster will undoubtedly count as 'arrogance' for choosing a workaround.

[Thetawaves]

While I am largely on the systemd side - that one is easy.

Make User= only accept input that starts with a character. Add another option for Uid= that would only accept numeric digits.

[okasaki]

Use UserName and UserID instead of User?

[mjw1007]

It could treat all-digit values differently to values that just start with a digit.