Special users (bin)

[Cory_Janick.Henr801h at xerox.com]

QUESTION:
We have just reveived an HP Apollo workstation running HP-UX. I have
noticed that the user bin has the password disabled. The HP rep here
told me that this is meant to stay this way, as bin is a special user,
meaning one isn't supposed to use it. I had always thought that bin
was there to allow one to manage the various bin and lib directories
without using the (dangerous) powers of root. Who is right?

Mark Flynn
Departamento de Fisica Atomica y Nuclear
Universidad de Granada
Spain


REPLY:

I believe that it depends on the flavor of Unix you are using.
When I was a systems programmer using HP9000 machines I was told that
the bin and lib user ids were there so that certain files could be owned by
bin and lib. Most of the maintenance should be done through the SAM and
other system maintenance and installation utilities (so I was told.). If you 
decide you need to use the ids then you can change the password.