3

A little discussions alike this what is a fame of Askubuntu hints me to ask for community opinion due to this is a "multipolar" theme and adequate answer written normal English at the normal user guide nonexistent and what is presumably deliberately situate the crowd.

Though obviously the answer resides extant taxon of the well meaning.
What I wait from community it is all about

Question: What is normal reason for changing user ID?

enter image description here

Community
  • 1
swift
  • 3,281
  • 2
  • 23
  • 46
  • What do you mean, changing a files owner or running a process as another user? – rhubarbdog Jan 21 '15 at 04:45
  • 1
    No. Just changing User ID or Group ID. – swift Jan 21 '15 at 18:15
  • Good and reasonable question! Excellent Answer! Why close??? – Fabby Jan 27 '15 at 21:54
  • First say, @Fabby, what do you mean with your global edits and this question? – swift Jan 28 '15 at 10:18
  • @swift: My apologies: The question is not at you but at someone (I don't know who, so generic question in the comments) who is trying to close your question because it's unclear. :( And the comment in the body of the text itself is only visible to anyone who edits (basically you) and I just wanted to point out that without this text, the question becomes extremely clear... Chat??? AskUbuntu General room? – Fabby Jan 28 '15 at 10:39
  • No, thanks. My reason is I do not search an easy Q and A despite it is also nice motivation. Closing Questions is a normal practice if you do not knows about. Thanks. – swift Jan 28 '15 at 10:57
  • Alike Ubuntu progressive development the Question someday wont be needed due to will be old or irrelevant. However I try to find Questions with some universal aspect. – swift Jan 28 '15 at 11:01

1 Answers1

6

Some examples of reasons where someone would need to edit the User ID:

  • User IDs (UID) can have special meanings on a system. And not every Linux system uses the same groups of UIDs.

    • Some Linux distributions begin UIDs for non-privileged users at 100. Others, such as Red Hat, begin them at 500, and still others, such Debian, start them at 1000. Because of the differences among distributions, manual intervention can be necessary if multiple distributions are used in a network in an organization.

    So a transition from Redhat to Ubuntu where there are UIDs 500 through 999 on the Redhat system need to be changed to 1000+ if they are to act the same as they did on Redhat. Could be done manually from this GUI.

  • A UID is unique when created normally but it does not have to be. You can change the UID here to match another users UID. Use-case: https://askubuntu.com/a/427257/15811

  • It is also possible to recycle UIDs (where you edit the UID to match a sequence).

  • The UID can be used to group users. Just like Ubuntu uses UIDs 1000+ as a group someone could create there own rules and create a group 2000-2999, 3000-3999 and put special meaning to those groups. Yes user a group ID would be smarter/quicker.

  • Another reason for changing user or group ID is to match them up with another server.

Community
  • 1
Rinzwind
  • 299,756