Owner/Group showing up as "??????????" on some Windows files despite mkpasswd/mkgroup

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

On 1/2/2011 7:08 PM, aputerguy wrote:
>
>
>
> Larry Hall (Cygwin) wrote:
>>
>> On 1/2/2011 9:09 AM, aputerguy wrote:
>>> Csaba Raduly-2 wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 7:59 AM, aputerguy wrote:
>>>>> If trustedinstaller is a valid file owner then I would like it to
>>>>> show up as the file owner in cygwin so that rsync transfers it over
>>>>> properly. Presumably this would mean adding it to my /etc/passwd file
>>>>> though I'm not sure what would be the best entry to use.
>>>>>
>>>>> On the other hand if trustedinstaller SHOULD NOT be owning any files
>>>>> and its just an error on my windows system then I would like to
>>>>> correct the file ownership in windows so that the files have the
>>>>> correct owners.
>>>>
>>>> On Windows 7 and Vista, "trustedinstaller" owns (and is supposed to
>>>> own) all the files of the OS:
>>>>
>>>> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2007.06.acl.aspx
>>>> (quoted in
>>>> http://www.vistax64.com/vista-security/87679-trusted-installer.html#post528738
>>>> )
>>>>
>>>
>>> If so, wouldn't it make sense to add trustedinstaller to the passwd and
>>> group file to distinguish those files that have a legitimate ownership
>>> from others that truly may be owned by an unknown user?
>>
>> Sure.  But the point is that the SID isn't considered a Windows user so
>> that's why it doesn't show up by default.  As a work-around for now, you
>> can add a line like this to your '/etc/passwd' file:
>>
>> TrustedInstaller:unused:80:544:Trusted Installer,U-NT
>> SERVICE\TrustedInstaller,S-1-5-80-956008885-3418522649-1831038044-1853292631-2271478464::
>>
>> (The above is all on one line)
>>
>> This will make "TrustedInstaller" show up as the user, just like you will
>> see in Windows.  The group is still '????????' though.  I'll leave
>> tracking down the proper SID for the group as an exercise for the reader.
>> ;-)
>>
>>
>
> - Are you aware of any other "non-user" users&  groups on a typical
> Vista/Windows7 installation that I should be looking out for and making
> ad-hoc adjustments for as above?

No but that doesn't mean Windows doesn't have them. ;-)

> - Just so I can understand, can someone explain to me the rationale for not
> having cygwin by default be able to recognize such an incredibly common and
> seemingly standard owner of files as the TrustedInstaller ssid? I'm not sure
> I understand the benefit of mapping such a common and known owner to the
> '????????' notation which is supposed to be for unknown users and groups.
>
> I mean from a user perspective, I don't see the downside of not including
> any standard user who is likely to own files. I mean just like in regular
> *nix, we create users for services such as mail, apache, etc that are likely
> to be owning and/or requiring access to files, why wouldn't we do the same
> on Windows?

The reason is simple.  Virtual users aren't enumerated by the standard
Windows APIs that provide all the other user SIDs.  So, we don't get this
covered for free.  We need more code.  It's just a case of
<http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#SHTDI>.

You can be the first on your block to offer a patch to Cygwin to handle
this. :-)

-- 
Larry

_____________________________________________________________________

A: Yes.
> Q: Are you sure?
>> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
>>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

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