[OpenWrt-Devel] r49252 (dnsmasq: run as dedicated UID/GID) causing major havoc

[Hannu Nyman]

r49252 (dnsmasq: run as dedicated UID/GID) seems to be causing major havoc.

So far at least 5 bugs about it: #22271, #22277, #22278, #22300, #22303

The change to require a separate userid & group for dnsmasq without providing 
any transitioning mechanism effectively prevents dnsmasq from starting if the 
userid is not there. In practice this kills DNS & DHCP for anybody who:
a) applies DD trunk sysupgrade with preserving old settings,
b) restores a previous settings backup,
c) upgrades later from AA/BB/CC to the forthcoming DD release while 
preserving settings

So, this headache will not go away easily. I think that we need a 
transitioning mechanism to ensure that dnsmasq starts despite the possibly 
missing userid.

I see three alternatives:

1) dnsmasq startup init script checks for dnsmasq user's presence and if yes, 
only then apply the separate userid parameter for dnsmasq

2) dnsmasq startup init script checks for dnsmasq user's presence and creates 
the user if not present

3) uci-defaults script added to dnsmasq package to create the new user at the 
first boot (note that this solution might not solve the case b for restoring 
an earlier settings backup later )

I am not sure what might be optimal in the long run. 2) creating the user 
might provice most uniform behaviour later
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