Is it possible to influence at what UID MacPorts start to create users?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Aug 14, 2019, at 16:36, Gerben Wierda wrote:

> If you create local userson macOS, it starts with uid 501 and then goes up. (for network users it always (still?) started with 1025 and then goes up.
> 
> MacPorts, when it creates users, starts with 500 and then goes up.

I noticed that too... I think this is a bug. I think we meant to start user IDs at 501, just like Apple. In ./src/pextlib1.0/Pextlib.c the comment describing the function NextuidCmd says it will "Find the first unused UID > 500" but it actually starts at the value of MIN_USABLE_UID which the configure script hardcodes as 500.


> So, depending on the order of creation, the same user has different uid (same for groups). It is not generally a problem, but I don’t like it. Depending on the order of actions on a system you get different uids for different MacPorts-generated users, intermingled with created local users.
> 
> I’d like to tell macports to start at another number, to lessen the chance of this.

There isn't a setting for the user to change this. If you want to change it, you'll have to edit the number in the MacPorts base configure script, reconfigure, and recompile.

Just make sure you don't use UIDs less than 500, which are reserved.