[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#603315: Bug#603315: wrongly complains about user being logged in on userdel

[Michael Biebl]

On 15.11.2010 23:12, Nicolas François wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 10:59:56PM +0100, biebl at debian.org wrote:
>>
>> today I tried to purge the gdm3 package, which in postrm tries to delete
>> the "Debian-gdm" user it created on installation. This failed though, as
>> userdel wrongly complained about the user being logged in:
>>
>> pluto:~# lastlog -u Debian-gdm
>> Username         Port     From             Latest
>> Debian-gdm                                 **Never logged in**
>> pluto:~# userdel Debian-gdm
>> userdel: user Debian-gdm is currently logged in
> 
> Instead of using lastlog, can you try if Debian-gdm is still executing
> processes?
> 
> (something like "ps U Debian-gdm")
> 

There was indeed a process running under the Debian-gdm uid:
 1419 ?        S      0:00 /usr/lib/policykit-1-gnome/polkit-gnome-authenticatio

I tried to reproduce the problem (install and uninstall gdm3) but failed so far,
so I'm not sure what to do about this bug.

At least the error message was a bit misleading. If it had said something like:
the following processes are still running under that user uid
...

it would have been more obvious to me what was going on.

Cheers,
Michael

-- 
Why is it that all of the instruments seeking intelligent life in the
universe are pointed away from Earth?

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