[Bug 73398] Re: crontab in /var/spool/cron/crontabs are stored by username

[Gordon Lack]

> A lot of the time, people's login name gets renamed from a central
authority...

Another solution would be to get that policy changed, as it's not a good one.
Such a policy would be a nightmare in any industry that has to track who does what for regulatory purposes, where user ids should be constant and unique to an individual.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/73398

Title:
  crontab in /var/spool/cron/crontabs are stored by username

Status in cron package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: cron

  File in /var/spool/cron/crontabs are created with the name of the user
  who owns it when running 'crontab -e'. Their permissions are set
  properly. However, when a user is renamed, his access to these files
  is not properly preserved by the cron system.

  There are two solutions:

  a) name the files with an assigned immutable identifier, specifically the POSIX uid
  b) open and locate files by enumerating the owner permission

  Either solution solves the problem. Solution (a) is easier to code and
  leads to less overall confusion on the users (why is foo a file for
  foo2, and foo a file for bar?).

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