news
A Linux system account: what it is, and which numbers it holds.
What this account is
The owner of Usenet spool files on systems running news software. Posting programs such as inews are commonly setgid to it so that they can write to the spool.
Source: base-passwd, doc/users-and-groups.sgml, edition 0.2
Sources
| Distribution | Source package | Package version | Commit | Read from source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debian | base-passwd | 3.6.8 | a080557e1d59 | 2026-08-07 |
| Alpine Linux | alpine-baselayout | 3.7.2 | a9c597c5cee0 | 2026-08-07 |