Home / server / Questions / 838575
Accepted
John K
Asked: 2017-03-16 18:18:34 +0800 CST

Difference between busybox system vs non-system users/groups?

  • 772

Regarding adduser -S and addgroup -S described at https://busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html

What is the difference between creating a 'system user' and a non-system user? I cannot find additional information about this configuration. When might I choose to create a system user over a non-system user?

I see the same option applies to creating user groups.

I can look at regular Linux man pages like https://www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/8-useradd/ to get the concept, but I'm still unsure if the busybox implementation is exactly the same, or if there is additional busybox information available that I should be aware of when using the command. For example, the parameter names differ in the busybox implementation vs standard man page link provided in this question, which gives me pause.

linux user-management busybox

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    AFAIK a system user gets a UID number with a value in the reserved range (100-500) rather then the first available UID number for regular accounts.

    The Linux Standard Base Core Specification specifies that UID values in the range 0 to 99 should be statically allocated by the system, and shall not be created by applications, while UIDs from 100 to 499 should be reserved for dynamic allocation by system administrators and post install scripts.

    The actual ranges for both system user UID numbers as well as those for "regular" users are defined in /etc/login.defs

    • 1