[Adduser-devel] Bug#298883: adduser --system should add users without expire period

[Gerhard Schrenk]

Package: adduser
Version: 3.59
Severity: wishlist

'adduser --system' adds apparently users with expire and warn period
from /etc/login.defs

For example it reads the following setting in /etc/login.defs
PASS_MAX_DAYS   183
PASS_MIN_DAYS   0
PASS_WARN_AGE   183

Example: After 1/2 year after upgrading to sarge logcheck (which added a
new system user) suddenly stopped mailing its reports.

Sarge default settings are
PASS_MAX_DAYS   99999 
PASS_MIN_DAYS   0 
PASS_WARN_AGE   7

Maybe 'PASS_MAX_DAYS 0' instead of 99999 would be the sane setting for
_system_  users, if it would mean no expire period at all?? But this is
not documented in shadow(5) and I have not verified this value is sane.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.26-ow2-wjq
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE= (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages adduser depends on:
ii  debconf                     1.4.30.11    Debian configuration management sy
ii  passwd                      1:4.0.3-30.7 Change and administer password and
ii  perl-base                   5.8.4-6      The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

-- debconf information:
* adduser/homedir-permission: false