update-notifier not started if UID < 500

[David Schweikert]

Binary package hint: update-notifier

My UID is 352. It is like that to match my UID on the NFS file-server. Now since my upgrade to intrepid I don't see the update-notifier anymore (I didn't notice it until now!). The reason for that is the following code:

gboolean
system_user()
{
   /* do not start for system users, e.g. the guest session
    * (see /usr/share/gdm/guest-session/guest-session-setup.sh)
    */
   uid_t uid = getuid();
   if (uid < 500)
      return TRUE;
   return FALSE;
}

That's really ugly! Make that 500 configurable, please.

[Albert (jerome-cabaret)]

Same problem, I login from a nis server and my UID is inferior to 500.
The "--force" parameter would be a good workaround, don't you think?

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

We add this code because http://refspecs.linux-foundation.org/LSB_3.2.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/uidrange.html says that this is a reserved space (and we don't want to run it for the "guest" user account that is dynamically allocated).

I made --force start it and added a gconf key to specific the upper limit (in bzr).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-notifier - 0.75.6

---------------
update-notifier (0.75.6) jaunty; urgency=low

  * data/update-notifier.desktop.in:
    - work with other DEs than gnome,xfce (LP: #300463)
  * po/POTFILES.in:
    - add missing file (LP: #298806)
  * src/update-notifier.c:
    - make "--force" start u-n even for system users (LP: #294569)
    - add gconf-key /apps/update-notifier/end_system_uids to make
      this configurable
  * src/update.{cc,h}:
    - show amount of updates available in notification
      (LP: #243695) as well

 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:24:31 +0100