Currently, the /tools and /sources directories are owned by the user
hlfs, a user that exists only
on the host system. Although that directories can be deleted once the
HLFS system has been finished, they can be retained to build
additional HLFS systems. If that directories are kept as they are,
the files are owned by a user ID without a corresponding account.
This is dangerous because a user account created later could get this
same user ID and would own the directories and all the files therein,
thus exposing these files to possible malicious manipulation.
To avoid this issue, add the hlfs user to the new HLFS system later
when creating the /etc/passwd file,
taking care to assign it the same user and group IDs as on the host
system. Alternatively, assign the contents of the /tools and /sources
directories to user root by
running the following command:
chown -R 0:0 /tools
The command uses 0:0 instead
of root:root, because
chown is unable to
resolve the name “root” until
the password file has been created. This book assumes you ran this
chown command.