On May 12, 2009, at 3:18 PM, Mark Hatle wrote:

> We handle this by doing installs in the following order:
> *) passwd/group (rpm2cpio)
> *) filesystem/basesystem/setup
> *) "Everything else"
>
> This appeared to be the only safe way to setup the environment (even  
> prior to us using RPM5.)
>

"safe"?

Note also that rpm has hardwired root=0, pre-installing /etc/passwd  
doesn't
begin to change that flaw. AFAIK POSIX mandates root=0, but I
really haven't looked in 5+ years.

73 de Jeff