[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#407497: passwd: chsh, chfn prompt root for the password (breaking .postinst scripts)

[Jan Braun]

Package: passwd
Version: 1:4.0.18.1-6
Severity: normal

Hi,
I had upgrades of logcheck and sash fail because they use chfn and chsh
(respectively) in their postinst script, and these ask for a password
even when invoked by root.
This causes a hang since the postinst script doesn't seem to be in
control of the terminal, and I can't enter anything at all; the only
way out is killing chsh/chfn from another console. But even without
that, I'd probably confused by a Password: prompt expecting a root
password in the middle of a "sudo aptitude upgrade" run.

If prompting root for a password is desired behavior, please reassign
this bug to sash and logcheck, so they can fix their .postinst scripts.

Thanks,
    Jan

# chsh -s /bin/sash root
Password:
chsh: PAM authentication failed
# aptitude reinstall sash
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  firefox
The following packages will be REINSTALLED:
  sash
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information... Done
Setting up sash (3.7-7.2) ...
Password: icantypetextherebutnotenteranypassword
/var/lib/dpkg/info/sash.postinst: line 133: 13505 Terminated              chsh -s /bin/sash root
dpkg: error processing sash (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 143
Errors were encountered while processing:
 sash
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install.  Trying to recover:
Setting up sash (3.7-7.2) ...
Password: samehere
/var/lib/dpkg/info/sash.postinst: line 133: 14469 Terminated              chsh -s /bin/sash root
dpkg: error processing sash (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 143
Errors were encountered while processing:
 sash
# icantypetextherebutnotenteranypassword
bash: icantypetextherebutnotenteranypassword: command not found
# samehere
bash: samehere: command not found
# grep chsh /var/lib/dpkg/info/sash.postinst
        chsh -s /bin/sash sashroot
            chsh -s /bin/sash root
# grep chfn /var/lib/dpkg/info/logcheck.postinst
    chfn -f 'Logcheck system user' logcheck
#


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-3-k7
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=de_DE (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages passwd depends on:
ii  debianutils                 2.17         Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  libc6                       2.3.6.ds1-8  GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libpam-modules              0.79-4       Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam0g                    0.79-4       Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libselinux1                 1.32-3       SELinux shared libraries
ii  login                       1:4.0.18.1-6 system login tools

passwd recommends no packages.

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