Bug#1125216: systemd-homed: polkitd (and others) fails to resolve group membership for systemd-homed users

[rslemos]

Package: systemd-homed
Version: 259-1
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: rslemos at gmail.com

Dear Maintainer,

current "group" configuration of /etc/nsswitch.conf (group: files systemd) will
not correctly resolve group membership for systemd-homed users (for groups in
/etc/group).

For instance, polkit will look for members of group sudo, failing to note that
currently logged user (systemd-homed managed) is a member thereof.


Steps to reproduce:

    Create a user via homectl create <user> --member-of=sudo.

    `getent group sudo`

    The output will not list the user created in first step.


Workaround/Fix: Changing the group line in /etc/nsswitch.conf to use
[SUCCESS=merge] resolves the issue: "group: files [SUCCESS=merge] systemd"

After workaround, `getent group sudo` will list users reported by systemd.

I don't know if this is the correct fix for this issue though.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: forky/sid
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'oldstable-updates'), (500, 'oldstable-security'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (500, 'oldstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.17.13+deb14-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE, TAINT_WARN, TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages systemd-homed depends on:
ii  init-system-helpers  1.69
ii  libc6                2.42-6
ii  libfdisk1            2.41.3-2
ii  libpam-runtime       1.7.0-5
ii  libpam0g             1.7.0-5
ii  libssl3t64           3.5.4-1
ii  libsystemd-shared    259-1
ii  polkitd              127-1
ii  systemd              259-1
ii  systemd-userdbd      259-1

Versions of packages systemd-homed recommends:
ii  libblkid1    2.41.3-2
ii  libmount1    2.41.3-2
ii  libselinux1  3.9-4+b1

Versions of packages systemd-homed suggests:
ii  libcryptsetup12          2:2.8.3-1
ii  libidn2-0                2.3.8-4
ii  libp11-kit0              0.25.10-1
ii  libtss2-esys-3.0.2-0t64  4.1.3-1.2
ii  libtss2-mu-4.0.1-0t64    4.1.3-1.2
ii  libtss2-rc0t64           4.1.3-1.2

-- no debconf information