uucp:x:5:5:uucp Admin:/usr/lib/uucp:
nuucp:x:9:9:uucp Admin:/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lib/uucp/uucico
smmsp:x:25:25:SendMail Message Submission Program:/:
listen:x:37:4:Network Admin:/usr/net/nls:
nobody:x:60001:60001:Nobody:/:
noaccess:x:60002:60002:No Access User:/:
nobody4:x:65534:65534:SunOS 4.x Nobody:/:



I have no idea what any of these accounts do... Would anyone find it unwise to remove these from the system?

I would recommend against deleting those. They are all system accounts used for various purposes. For example, listen is the network listener daemon that monitors your system for requests coming in over the network. Turn that off and all of a sudden your box will be unable to accept connections over the network.

There is no harm to leaving these in place, and removing them could cause a variety of problems. Even if you're sure you don't use one of them, I would imagine removing a system account like that could cause future problems when trying to apply patches to your machine which try to update files related to the removed account.

If your concern is security related, definitely turn off the services you don't want in inetd.conf or (or using inetadm in Solaris 10). But I wouldn't remove the related system accounts.

yep im in agreement with you... completley.. but i wanted a second opinon...

While it is not necessary, it is recommended that you get rid of the 'UUCP' users. [uucp & nuucp]
Since they belong to a 'system' that is RARELY used.

You do this by executing the 'pkgrm' command for the two UUCP packages: SUNWbnuu && SUNWbnur.

Which (respectively) are 'Basic Networking Utilities (User)' and 'Basic Networking Utilities (Root)'.
[Remove in that order.]

They are usually considered security risks, and are really not much use unless there is a modem attached to the computer.


The 'nobody && noaccess' users are sometimes used as IDs to run certain processed as, to make the processes less likely to cause harm if 'hacked'.

Netscape used to run the 'httpd' as 'nobody' by default, some folks run Apache as that user.

The 'smmsp' user is what sendmail runs it's 'listen' process as, and the 'listen' user is a left over from the AT&T System V Release 4 OS (which was the original 'root OS' that Solaris grew out of).
The 'listen' user no longer is used, BUT, as you said, there might be 'stuff' lingering around that requires it.