The libuser library and its corresponding package provides a set of commands and an API which can be used by tools like Ansible to manage UNIX account and group configuration in different NSS databases (local /etc/passwd and /etc/group databases, LDAP, NIS, etc.). This allows to abstract away user and group management and make it independent from the underlying database.

The debops.libuser role installs and configures the libuser package on Debian or Ubuntu hosts. The library is used by some other DebOps roles like debops.users, debops.system_users to manage local UNIX accounts and groups when the hosts are joined to an LDAP environment. The default configuration set up by the role ensures that Ansible user and group modules, when instructed, can correctly create local account and group entries in the passwd and group databases.