[[!tag debian idea]]

Debian got squeeze released, and ideas are brewing for what to do during the next release cycle. Here's an idea I had lying around. I'm throwing it out there, since I won't have time to do anything about it for at least a little while, but perhaps someone else thinks it's a good idea? Or, better yet, you can all tell me in comments why this is a bad idea, or at least why it should be designed in a different way.

NAME
       addsysuser, delsysuser - create and remove systems user in Debian pack‐
       ages

SYNOPSIS
       addsysuser [options] username

       delsysuser [options] username

DESCRIPTION
       addsysuser creates a system user, and delsysuser removes it.  The  pur‐
       puse  of these tools is to make it easier for Debian packages to create
       and remove system users as  the  pacakges  are  installed  and  purged.
       These are wrappers around adduser(8) and deluser(8).

       addsysuser  will  create the system user, unless it already exists.  If
       the user already exists, it does nothing.

       delsysuser removes the user.  However,  the  system  administrator  may
       configure  it  to  never remove the user, or to remove only some users.
       Use the /etc/adduser.conf for the settings:

       DELETESYSTEMUSERS
          Set to true or false  depending  on  whether  delsysuser  should
          remove the system user or not.  Defaults to true.

OPTIONS
       -p, --packagePACKAGE
          Record the user as being used by a specific package.  Many pack‐
          ages can use the same user.  delsysuser  will  only  remove  the
          user when no packages are using it anymore.

       --no-act
          Only  pretend  to call adduser or deluser without actually doing
          so.  This allows easier testing of command lines.

FILES
       /etc/adduser.conf
          Configuration file for addsysuser and delsysuser.

EXAMPLE
       In the postinst script:

          addsysuser --package hello hellouser

       In the postrm script:

          delsysuser --package hello hellouser

SEE ALSO
       adduser(8), deluser(8).