Opened 12 years ago

Closed 4 years ago

Last modified 4 years ago

#33697 closed defect (fixed)

Uninstall instructions will not remove user/group "macports"

Reported by: neville@… Owned by: macports-tickets@…
Priority: Normal Milestone:
Component: guide Version:
Keywords: Cc:
Port:

Description (last modified by mf2k (Frank Schima))

The uninstall script at

http://guide.macports.org/chunked/installing.macports.uninstalling.html

fails to remove

/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/macports.plist
/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/groups/macports.plist

which leaves user-name (macports), group (macports) and ID (typically 503) on the database causing confusion and minor inconvenience.

Users become aware of this when changing permissions in Get Info or using AppleJack etc.

Removing these 2 plist files works with Leopard and probably works with later OSs.

Correcting and testing the script should be relatively easy.

Change History (9)

comment:1 Changed 12 years ago by mf2k (Frank Schima)

Component: portswiki
Description: modified (diff)
Milestone: MacPorts 2.0.5
Version: 2.0.4

comment:2 Changed 12 years ago by ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)

There are countless ports in MacPorts that can install users and groups; they're never removed either. So I'm not inclined to modify the uninstallation instructions for this.

comment:3 Changed 12 years ago by ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)

Component: wikiguide
Owner: changed from macports-tickets@… to markd@…

comment:4 in reply to:  2 Changed 12 years ago by neville@…

Replying to ryandesign@…:

There are countless ports in MacPorts that can install users and groups; they're never removed either. So I'm not inclined to modify the uninstallation instructions for this.

I can see your point but you are probably unaware that users have had difficulty getting advice about how to remove such details from their Macs. I maintain that a complete removal of changes introduced by MacPorts is more ethical and more likely to be what users expect from uninstall scripts. If you are not prepared to alter the script I strongly urge you to accompany it with clear instructions for manual removal of these two plist files.

For your information: I got here by following ImageMagick's advice to install MacPorts first. I have used MacPorts before on other Macs but the latest version was a disaster. After 4 hours of over 90% CPU MacPorts showed no sign of getting anywhere. I aborted and went to bed. It took 2 days to discover how to removed MacPorts details from my Mac. Installing ImageMagick without MacPorts took about an hour.

comment:5 Changed 12 years ago by neville@…

For:

"After 4 hours of over 90% CPU MacPorts showed no sign of getting anywhere."

please read:

'After 4 hours of over 90% CPU the installation of MacPorts showed no sign of getting anywhere.'

comment:6 Changed 10 years ago by mf2k (Frank Schima)

Owner: changed from markd@… to macports-tickets@…

markd has retired. See #44782.

comment:7 Changed 7 years ago by raimue (Rainer Müller)

Summary: Incomplete uninstall scriptUninstall instructions will not remove user/group "macports"

comment:8 Changed 4 years ago by jmroot (Joshua Root)

Resolution: fixed
Status: newclosed

In b71c9e3ba026db6b348abbd2ca8fd22f8294ed83/macports-guide (master):

Add instructions for removing users

Closes: #33697

comment:9 Changed 4 years ago by ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)

Has duplicate #37366.

Note: See TracTickets for help on using tickets.