[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#363033: passwd: usermod has a confusing usage when adding groups for a user

[Dimitri Chausson]

Package: passwd
Version: 1:4.0.14-9
Severity: normal

When issuing the command usermod as root, I get:

--------------------------------------------------
usermod
Usage: usermod [options] login

Options:
  -a, --append GROUP            append the user to the supplemental GROUP
  ... other options
  -G, --groups GROUPS           list of supplementary GROUPS
--------------------------------------------------

I would interpret it the following way: if I want the user dimitri to be
part of the group src, I should type:

> usermod -a src dimitri

In reality, I have to type:

> usermod -a -G src dimitri

The man page mentions (option -G):
--------------------------------------------------
If the user is currently a member of a group which is not listed, 
the user will be removed from the group. This behaviour can be 
changed via -a option, which appends user to the current supplementary
group list.
--------------------------------------------------

In my opinion, it would be better to say that -a must be used in
combination with -G in order to add a group to a user. 
In the usage, it looks as if -a were a standalone option, which is not
true.

Dimitri

Note : I changed my locale to en_US, so that the output is better
understandable, but the translation has the same problem.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (50, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16
Locale: LANG=fr_FR at euro, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR at euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)

Versions of packages passwd depends on:
ii  debianutils                   2.15.3     Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  libc6                         2.3.6-3    GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libpam-modules                0.79-3.1   Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam0g                      0.79-3.1   Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libselinux1                   1.30-1     SELinux shared libraries
ii  login                         1:4.0.14-9 system login tools

passwd recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
  passwd/password-mismatch:
* passwd/username: dimitri
  passwd/password-empty:
* passwd/md5: true
  passwd/user-uid:
* passwd/shadow: true
  passwd/username-bad:
* passwd/user-fullname: Debian User
* passwd/make-user: true
  passwd/title: