[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#1124835: Bug#1124835: chpasswd hash check goes too far

[Marc Haber]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2026 at 12:17:25AM +0100, Chris Hofstaedtler wrote:
>As noted by vinz, this is user error. After bash variable
>interpolation, this became echo 'aust:' | chpasswd --encrypted. Not
>what you wanted, I guess.

I confirm my mistake. With the right kind of quotes, it works. That 
happened while investigating adduser test failures. I apologize.

>> > > # echo "aust:*" | chpasswd --encrypted
>> > > chpasswd: (line 1, user aust) invalid password hash
>> > > chpasswd: error detected, changes ignored
>
>This and the !-variant will be fixed in a moment using patches from
>Alejandro.

It has still become impossible in the future to disalbe an account while 
preserving the password. This destroys functionality that has been 
available for decades and is also in wide use. Adduser has grown by 
about 500 lines to cater for that. It has also lost a test that used to 
check whether a security vulnerability that warranted a security update 
is still absend. That upstream decision neiher makes software and life 
simpler, nor does it improve software quality.

Greetings
Marc

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