Should I assign gid explicitly when I create a group? I thought `gid` is automatically assigned when I create a group. But I found a chef receipt file that assigns a number `403` to `gid` directly. < Does it not cause a overlapping `gid`s? And what is the reason when you assign a `gid` explicitly?

New users typically get assigned at gid 500. You can change this by modifying `UID_MIN` in /etc/login.def

( Note: Some older distros started at 100, and some new distros made 1000 the default).

Users below the `UID_MIN` are non system users (eg. apache, tomcat, ect..).

The author of the recipe likely piked a random number less than 500 and claimed it for their own purposes. While it is not best practice, it is unlikely another program is hard coded to use 403.

A better approach would have been for the recipe author to set `system = true` at the user creation.


user 'td-agent' do
comment 'td-agent'
system true
....
end


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Additional Resources

What are the dangers of creating a normal user with UID < 500?