2

I have just installed Debian Squeeze x64 and tried sending myself a test email from it using the normal "mail" command. When I sent it I got this error from Exim:

2013-06-08 08:12:46 Exim configuration error in line 173 of /var/lib/exim4/config.autogenerated: user uucp was not found
Can't send mail: sendmail process failed with error code 1

After a bit of research into this it sounds like all Debian systems should have the "uucp" user, but can I just run "useradd uucp" or does it need setting up to own certain directories and stuff?

Improve this question
1
  • you probably need to dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config and select a configuration without uucp support Commented Jun 9, 2013 at 15:48

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

On my Ubuntu system I have a user uucp and it must have been created early because of its usernumber. grep uucp /etc/passwd gives:

uucp:x:10:10:uucp:/var/spool/uucp:/bin/sh

and /var/spool/uucp does not exist. grep uucp /etc/group gives:

uucp:x:10:

and grep uucp /etc/shadow gives:

uucp:*:15426:0:99999:7:::

So you should try to create a new user with:

adduser --system --home /var/spool/uucp --no-create-home --shell /bin/sh --group uucp

This will give you a user with a 'low' uid, where useradd uucp would not.

Improve this answer
2
  • useradd uucp and then usermod --home /var/spool/uucp seems to have solved it, thanks Commented Jun 8, 2013 at 12:38
  • 1
    From the useradd man page: useradd is a low level utility for adding users. On Debian, administrators should usually use adduser(8) instead. Your command probably got you a 'high' uid. That will work (which is the most important), but is not as clearly a 'system' user as you would get with my example. Commented Jun 8, 2013 at 12:43

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.