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.