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For those of you who don't know, fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net) is a debian-based package management program for OS X which ports a number of *nix programs to the mac. Using fink, I installed mc (Midnight Commander), my favorite terminal-based file management utility for linux. During the install, it told me it had to edit users/groups via NetInfo or something of the sort. I'm just wondering what this means to me. What if I should uninstall this package - or what if I were to uninstall fink? To the best of my knowledge, uninstallation of fink encompasses simple rm -rf of the /sw directory in addition to ~/.cshrc ... nothing about editing anything in NetInfo? I had thought that fink and its packages made no changes to the rest of the mac filesystem?? Help appreciated, tia.

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Dani AI

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When fink (the package manager you used) asks about editing users/groups via NetInfo it is telling you that one of its helper packages (the Debian-style passwd helper used by some fink packages) wants to create the low‑level system accounts that daemons and services normally run under (examples: mysql, postgres, www, etc.). Those accounts are added into OS X’s directory service (NetInfo on older Panther/Tiger systems) rather than only into files under the fink tree. saw that prompt; is also correct that fink runs privileged steps during installs, so those additions happen with root privileges. (finkproject.org)

Removing fink’s files will get rid of the binaries and libraries that live in fink’s tree, but it does not automatically rollback changes made to NetInfo: the directory service is a separate system database. If you want to remove users/groups that fink added you must remove them from NetInfo itself (NetInfo Manager or the command‑line tools) rather than just deleting fink’s directory. Also note a long‑standing caution: deleting those accounts via the Accounts/System Preferences GUI can reassign file ownership to an admin account and cause permission problems — remove them safely via NetInfo tools instead. (developer.apple.com)

To inspect what was added, use the NetInfo utilities. Useful checks (run as root) include:

nireport . /users name uid gid
niutil -list . /users
niutil -read -t localhost/local /users/<username>

These commands list the NetInfo users and show uid/gid/home/shell for specific entries so you can identify fink‑created accounts. (oreilly.com)

If you decide to remove an account, back up the NetInfo entry first and then remove it with NetInfo tools. Example workflow from older OS X documentation:

nidump -r /name=users/uid=5002 -t localhost/local > ~/user-backup
niutil -p -destroy -t localhost/local /name=users/uid=<uid-to-delete>
# then remove the corresponding home dir if desired
rm -rf /Users/<shortname>
# reload NetInfo if needed:
killall -HUP nibindd

Back up before you touch NetInfo. If you only installed a small userland tool (mc) and you’re not running services that need those accounts, leaving the extra accounts alone is harmless; they exist so packages can run safely as non‑root. (flylib.com)

Member Avatar for redage

very good that your time is so very limited. fink can only install in root mode. when it changes netinfo, its of no concern when you trash sw.
you also have to add the path in bashrc or whatever shell you use.

export PATH="/bin:/sbin:/sw:/sw/bin:/sw/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/lib:/usr/local/man:/usr/local/share:/usr/local/include:"
declare -x PATH="/bin:/sbin:/sw:/sw/bin://sw/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/lib:/usr/local/man/:/usr/local/share:/usr/local/include:"
declare -x MANPATH="/usr/share/man:/sw/share/man:/usr/local/man/:"

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