[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#136116: #136116: Do we fix this bug or just close it as known behaviour?

[Christian Perrier]

retitle 136116 [TO CLOSE 20050926] passwd: pwconv goes into infinite loop on duplicate userids
thanks

> On Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 11:28:00PM +0000, Paul Martin wrote:
> > Run pwunconv.
> > 
> > Edit /etc/passwd, and duplicate any line in there. (This simulates a 
> > mistake in a maintenance script.)
> > 
> > Run pwconv.
> > 
> > Notice how it runs forever, rather than throwing out an error?
> 
> The current pwconv man page mentions:
> BUGS
>        Errors  in  the  password  or group files (such as invalid or duplicate
>        entries) may cause these programs to loop  forever  or  fail  in  other
>        strange  ways.   Please  run  pwck and grpck to correct any such errors
>        before converting to or from shadow passwords or groups.
> 
> (Maybe this was added after this bug report)
> 
> It would be nice if pwck (or grpck) were run before running
> pwconv/pwunconv (or grpconv/grpunconv).
> 
> I propose to make move pwconv to pwconv-nocheck, and make a /bin/pwconv
> shell script which would call pwck and pwconv-nocheck.  pwconv-nocheck
> could still be used in non-interactive scripts.
> 


I think this would complicate the whole stuff a lot for a rare
situation which is actually documented in the man page.

So, I actually would prefer closing this bug as documented behaviour
rather than introducing some whacky scripts...