max / alloy

install: note the mailbox warning useradd prints at the user useradd exits 0 but writes "Creating mailbox file: No such file or directory" to the stream the run screen shows, because the stateroot var has no mail spool. Seen driving configure_plan against a real deployment. Recorded rather than silenced: creating a spool nothing on the image delivers to would exist only to quiet a warning.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: Max Johnson <me@maxj.phd> · 2026-07-20 17:42 UTC

Signed with PGP, not checked

Commit: da56cf53d2993cec473c45e46b2582e7c53ee043

Parent: ec9e742

1 file changed, +6 insertions, -0 deletions

M crates/alloy/src/install.rs +6

			@@ -530,6 +530,12 @@
530	530		// says as much — "chown on '/var/home/<user>' failed" — because the
531	531		// stateroot var ships with cache, lib, log, run and tmp and no home at
532	532		// all. The directory is made below, in the var that is real.
	533	+	// Prints "Creating mailbox file: No such file or directory" and exits
	534	+	// 0 anyway: the stateroot var has no mail spool for it to write into.
	535	+	// Harmless, but the run screen streams this, so the user watching
	536	+	// their install reads it as a failure. Left alone rather than
	537	+	// papered over -- a spool nothing on the image delivers to would be
	538	+	// invented purely to quiet a warning.
533	539		Stage::Run(
534	540		Invocation::new("useradd")
535	541		.args(["--root", root, "--no-create-home"])