Bug#1038150: openssh-client: Please add the openssh-client group rename from "ssh" to "_ssh" to the bookworm release notes

On Wed, Jun 18, 2025 at 10:28:41AM +0100, Simon McVittie wrote:
>On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 at 02:43:29 +0200, Alban Browaeys wrote:
>>I cannot login anymore via ssh.
>>I have the openemediavault installed on this box to manage the setup and
>>it set AllowGroups to "root ssh" in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.
>...
>>After the request from a user to rename the "ssh" group to free it for its
>>own use, the "ssh" group was rename to "_ssh" in
>>https://salsa.debian.org/ssh-team/openssh/-/commit/18da782ebe789d0cf107a550e474ba6352e68911
>>
>>But other users as in
>>https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=990456#35 or tools to
>>manage Debian have come to rely on this "ssh" group.
>
>I believe the openssh maintainers' position on this would be that the 
>ssh group was never intended to have ordinary users added to it, and 
>therefore this would be a bug in "openemediavault", which seems to be 
>third-party software that is not included in Debian?

This is correct.  I 100% intended the group to be for internal use only.

I agree with the sentiment of this bug that it perhaps would have been 
worth documenting in the release notes, but I didn't have time; and 
since bookworm's release is now receding in the rear-view mirror, 
perhaps this has been overtaken by events?  It's probably still worth 
documenting somewhere, although as you say:

>Unfortunately, /etc/group doesn't have a mechanism for pointing to 
>documentation about the intended purpose of a group, so it's easy for 
>a sysadmin or a piece of third-party software to start using a group 
>for an unintended purpose, and I think that's what has happened here.

... so I don't know exactly where.