yast2-users modifies UIDs/GIDs, which is not consistent with installed ownership from RPM

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1

Situation

System installed using an autoYaST profile that was cloned from another SLES 12 SP1 shows duplicate user/group IDs:

openslp:x:494:2:openslp daemon:/var/lib/empty:/sbin/nologin
polkitd:x:494:491:User for polkitd:/var/lib/polkit:/sbin/nologin

When the profile from a SLED 12 system is used, there are even more duplicates. It affects functionality of multiple system components, e.g. snapper:

test:~ # snapper list
Failure (org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ExecFailed).

Dbus-daemon has group id of polkit (incorrect):

test:~ # ps -eo pid,uid,args| grep dbus-daemon
833 499 /bin/dbus-daemon --system --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation

test:~ # id 499
uid=499(messagebus) gid=499(brlapi) groups=499(brlapi)

test:~ # ll /lib/dbus-1/dbus-daemon-launch-helper
-rwsr-x--- 1 root polkitd 294560 Mar 3 2015 /lib/dbus-1/dbus-daemon-launch-helper

Resolution

SUSE has released a PTF package:

yast2-users-3.1.40-1.3.10379.0.PTF.965852.x86_64.rpm

Use this package during installation. The package will be released soon as a maintenance update.

A mass PTF can be found here

To use the package during installation the boot option 'dud' must be used. For network based installation the complete options set will look like:

boot/sled/linux initrd=boot/sled/initrd install=http://install.site/inst/sled/ ramdisk_size=65535 vga=791 barrier=off autoyast=http://install.site/sled.xml dud=http://install.site/yast2-users.rpm

Make sure that profile used is generated on a working system using 'yast2 clone_system' after installation.

Cause

Profiles generated on older version or customized profiles may contain UIDS/GIDS conflicting with the ones used in rpm files.

Package 'yast-users' distributed on the installation media of SUSE Enterprise Desktop 12 SP1 is reading users from media and merging them with the profile.
Fixed version avoids reading of such users. Also, and only during installation, users are matched by username to avoid UID/GID duplication.

Additional Information

Disclaimer

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