I see this appear on my system and I believe its installed a new user called news, but what is it? There is no man page for it and apparently no executable either
Hi
It’s a system user (/etc/group, /etc/passwd), likely something installed that needs the user or group “news”, you installed nntp perhaps… All the system users where split a long time ago, there is no binary it’s just a file entry.
zypper if system-user-news
Information for package system-user-news:
-----------------------------------------
Repository : Main Repository (OSS)
Name : system-user-news
Version : 20170617-11.1
Arch : noarch
Vendor : openSUSE
Installed Size : 71 B
Installed : No
Status : not installed
Source package : system-users-20170617-11.1.src
Summary : System user and group 'news'
Description :
This package provides the system account and group 'news'
and their corresponding directories.
Well, in my zypper history i see this but as far back as 3/16 i dont see anything else to do with news. Something just installed a new user called news and i am at a loss as to what did that.
2020-05-25 15:16:06|install|kernel-default-devel|5.7.rc7-1.1.g67f7fb5|x86_64||Kernel_HEAD|c0706fa90c645aab6eeeef35b9e8486152c6d6efb4cc90e77cde34af0e809d29|
2020-05-25 15:16:07|install|kernel-syms|5.7.rc7-1.1.g67f7fb5|x86_64||Kernel_HEAD|aad7dc40374129af8c4f4eb96cad227d39d1b74a7f714a39602b3b2db347f704|
# 2020-05-25 15:16:07 system-user-news-20170617-11.1.noarch.rpm installed ok
# Additional rpm output:
# /usr/sbin/groupadd -r news
# /usr/sbin/useradd -r -s /sbin/nologin -c News system -d /etc/news -g news news
rpm -q --whatrequires 'user(news)'
rpm -q --whatrequires 'group(news)'
it is possible that this package was already removed though.
Thanks for the rpm info. both produce no active results so i deleted both the user and group news. If this causes problems at least I wil be able to see who/what is wanting it. Based n the rpm -q results tho it seems to just be a leftover
Thanks for the help, its appreciated.
User “news” is not installed here, and all is working well.
FWIIW.
On a Leap 15.1 that was upgraded from a 15.0 that was upgared van a 42.3 (and even maybe from a 42.2):
henk@boven:~> grep news /etc/passwd
news:x:9:13:News system:/etc/news:/bin/bash
henk@boven:~> rpm -q --whatrequires 'user(news)'
no package requires user(news)
henk@boven:~>
On a more recent fresh installed 15.1:
mgi@beneden:~> grep news /etc/passwd
mgi@beneden:~> grep news /etc/group
mgi@beneden:~>
AfAIK I never had anything done with respect to News programs like using, trying, etc. on both systems.
I have Leap 15.0 and Leap 42.3 sitting around in a virtual machine (sharing the same VM).
There is user “news” for 42.3, but not for 15.0.
So it looks as being a leftover of 42.3, still sitting in my 15.1. Not installed with a fresh15.1. Now re-introduced with Tumbleweed.
Or something like that. Does not look like a very stable policy, but OTOH, who cares?
Hi
Older release had it all (users/groups) lumped together, split out was last year sometime from memory…
Yes, some rumour about this reached me. Basicaly a good idea. Maybe they are still sorting this out and thus it re-appears in the OP’s TW. Or he has installed something that brings it in without realy knowing what package it was. In any case, I do not think it is something to wory about. I see at least 20 of those that probably are never used in my systems.
Hi
Just search the package name openSUSE Software follow the link, find the package and check the details (Provides)…
Or;
zypper se --requires user\(news\)
S | Name | Summary | Type
--+-----------+-----------------------------------------+--------
| gup | Group Update Program for INN and C-News | package
| inn | InterNetNews | package
| mininews | Inews - Post News from an NNTP Client | package
| syslog-ng | Enhanced system logging daemon | package
| syslogd | The Syslog daemon | package