Bug#308992: gdm should set SHELL to /bin/sh if /etc/passwd has no shell

[Dan Connolly]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.6.0.8-1
Severity: normal

I couldn't run programs under gdb, and evolution wouldn't
launch mozilla-firefox. Web searching showed that SHELL
nees to be set for gdb to run programs, and it wasn't set.

Turns out my /etc/passwd entry had no shell.

passwd(5) says "If this field is empty, it defaults to the
value /bin/sh."

So gdm should have set SHELL /bin/sh , yes?

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.6-win4lin
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser              3.63                Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf              1.4.49              Debian configuration management sy
ii  dpkg                 1.10.27             Package maintenance system for Deb
ii  gksu                 1.2.5-1             graphical frontend to su
ii  gnome-session        2.8.1-6             The GNOME 2 Session Manager
ii  gnome-terminal [x-te 2.8.2-2             The GNOME 2 terminal emulator appl
ii  libart-2.0-2         2.3.17-1            Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0          1.8.0-4             The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libattr1             2.4.21-1.0.1        Extended attribute shared library
ii  libbonobo2-0         2.8.1-2             Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0       2.8.1-2             The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                2.3.2.ds1-22        GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgconf2-4          2.8.1-6             GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0          1:2.4.2-2           library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0         2.6.4-1             The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0          2.8.1-2             The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0    2.8.0-1             A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0         2.8.1-3             The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0       2.8.4-4             The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgtk2.0-0          2.6.4-3             The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6              4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  liborbit2            1:2.12.2-1          libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpam-modules       0.76-22             Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime       0.76-22             Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g             0.76-22             Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0        1.8.1-1             Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0             1.7-5               lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  librsvg2-2           2.8.1-3             SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libselinux1          1.22-1              SELinux shared libraries
ii  libsm6               4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 X Window System Session Management
ii  libwrap0             7.6.dbs-8           Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6             4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxext6             4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii  libxi6               4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 X Window System Input extension li
ii  libxml2              2.6.16-7            GNOME XML library
ii  metacity [x-window-m 1:2.8.8-1           A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  xbase-clients        4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 miscellaneous X clients
ii  xlibs                4.3.0.dfsg.1-12     X Keyboard Extension (XKB) configu
ii  xterm [x-terminal-em 4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1 X terminal emulator
ii  zlib1g               1:1.2.2-4           compression library - runtime

-- debconf information:
  gdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm