[Cooker] User Management suggestion/question

[Frank Griffin]

I try to keep all user data on non-release-sensitive partitions (e.g. 
/data/user/xxx) and then have scripts to create links within /home/user 
to the real files.  The idea is that I can create new systems or cooker 
systems at will, run the scripts, mount the partitions (or copies 
thereof), and test.

Something I find frustrating from release to release is the creation of 
userids.  If I do a true install, there doesn't seem to be any way to 
point MDK to another system partition and say "go copy the usernames, 
UIDs, groupnames, and GIDs from here" in order to "seed" the new 
system's directory.  Moreover, even if I re-enter the IDs in the same 
order, the UIDs change slightly from release to release.

This happens because several of the user management GUI tools 
automatically assign the UID or GID and do not allow overrides.  Thus, 
if any >500 automatically cretaed UIDs change from release to release, 
you can't easily force IDs you define to have the same UIDs they had in 
the previous system, e.g. the addition of "admin" in 9.1 (and its 
removal now in Cooker).

Is there a sensible way to import user/group data from an existing 
install ?  If not, should there be ?  If there can't be, can we at least 
establish a UID and GID range that belongs to the sysadmin and doesn't 
get messed with ?