[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#484596: passwd: usermod fussy about options in an undocumented manner

[Nick Phillips]

Package: passwd
Version: 1:4.0.18.1-7
Severity: normal

It appears that usermod requires certain options to be present in order for certain
other options not to cause errors, and that they be present in a certain order.

I've noticed that "-o" causes errors if it appears either without or before "-u",
for example.

a) this is crazy (and breaks other apps which assume that it will behave sensibly)
b) this is undocumented

Puppet, for example, assumes sensible behaviour and breaks as a result. This is
obviously a bug in puppet as well, but does not excuse usermod. "Quirks" such as
this should at least be documented, if not removed.

Cheers,


Nick

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: powerpc (ppc64)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-5-powerpc64
Locale: LANG=en_NZ.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_NZ.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages passwd depends on:
ii  debianutils            2.17              Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  libc6                  2.3.6.ds1-13etch5 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libpam-modules         0.79-5            Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam0g               0.79-5            Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libselinux1            1.32-3            SELinux shared libraries
ii  login                  1:4.0.18.1-7      system login tools

passwd recommends no packages.

-- debconf information excluded