Debian Bug report logs - #708073
Recreating a system user fails when its UID is out of range

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Alexander Muthmann <deveth0mail@gmail.com>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: apt-cacher-ng: Upgrade of apt-cacher-ng failes

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:43:21 +0200

Package: apt-cacher-ng
Version: 0.7.11-1
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

if i try to upgrade apt-cacher-ng it failes with the following message:
root@internal-services:~# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Setting up apt-cacher-ng (0.7.11-1) ...
adduser: The user `apt-cacher-ng' already exists. Exiting.
dpkg: error processing apt-cacher-ng (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 apt-cacher-ng
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)


-- Package-specific info:

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.0
  APT prefers testing-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'testing-updates'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages apt-cacher-ng depends on:
ii  adduser                3.113+nmu3
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]  1.5.49
ii  dpkg                   1.16.10
ii  libbz2-1.0             1.0.6-4
ii  libc6                  2.13-38
ii  libgcc1                1:4.7.2-5
ii  liblzma5               5.1.1alpha+20120614-2
ii  libstdc++6             4.7.2-5
ii  libwrap0               7.6.q-24
ii  zlib1g                 1:1.2.7.dfsg-13

Versions of packages apt-cacher-ng recommends:
ii  ed    1.6-2
ii  perl  5.14.2-21

Versions of packages apt-cacher-ng suggests:
pn  doc-base  <none>
ii  libfuse2  2.9.0-2+deb7u1

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/apt-cacher-ng/acng.conf changed:
CacheDir: /tank/AptCache
LogDir: /var/log/apt-cacher-ng
Port:3142
Remap-debrep: file:deb_mirror*.gz /debian ; file:backends_debian # Debian Archives
Remap-uburep: file:ubuntu_mirrors /ubuntu ; file:backends_ubuntu # Ubuntu Archives
Remap-debvol: file:debvol_mirror*.gz /debian-volatile ; file:backends_debvol # Debian Volatile Archives
Remap-cygwin: file:cygwin_mirrors /cygwin # ; file:backends_cygwin # incomplete, please create this file or specify preferred mirrors here
Remap-sfnet:  file:sfnet_mirrors # ; file:backends_sfnet # incomplete, please create this file or specify preferred mirrors here
Remap-alxrep: file:archlx_mirrors /archlinux # ; file:backend_archlx # Arch Linux
Remap-fedora:  file:fedora_mirrors # Fedora Linux
Remap-epel:   file:epel_mirrors # Fedora EPEL
Remap-slrep:  file:sl_mirrors # Scientific Linux
ReportPage: acng-report.html
ExTreshold: 4

/etc/apt-cacher-ng/backends_debian changed:
http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/


-- debconf information:
  apt-cacher-ng/gentargetmode: No automated setup

Message #10 received at 706382@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Eduard Bloch <edi@gmx.de>

To: Alexander Muthmann <deveth0mail@gmail.com>, 706382@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#706382: apt-cacher-ng: Upgrade of apt-cacher-ng failes

Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 23:12:56 +0200

Hallo,
* Alexander Muthmann [Mon, Apr 29 2013, 02:43:21PM]:

> Setting up apt-cacher-ng (0.7.11-1) ...
> adduser: The user `apt-cacher-ng' already exists. Exiting.
> dpkg: error processing apt-cacher-ng (--configure):
>  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  apt-cacher-ng
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

This does not make sense, the adduser call has not been changed for
ages. Please run in a root console:

adduser --quiet --system --group --no-create-home --home /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng apt-cacher-ng
echo $?
which adduser

and post the output of the commands above.

Regards,
Eduard.

-- 
<jbf> z und y sind am falschen platy

Message #15 received at 706382@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Alexander Muthmann <amuthmann@dev-eth0.de>

To: 706382@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#706382: apt-cacher-ng: Upgrade of apt-cacher-ng failes

Date: Thu, 02 May 2013 11:10:16 +0200

Hi Eduard,

thanks for your reply.

The output produced is:
root@internal-services:~# adduser --quiet --system --group 
--no-create-home --home /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng apt-cacher-ng
adduser: The user `apt-cacher-ng' already exists. Exiting.
root@internal-services:~# echo $?
1
root@internal-services:~# which adduser
/usr/sbin/adduser

Hope this helps?

Message #20 received at 706382@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Eduard Bloch <edi@gmx.de>

To: amuthmann@dev-eth0.de, 706382@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#706382: apt-cacher-ng: Upgrade of apt-cacher-ng failes

Date: Sun, 5 May 2013 11:59:31 +0200

Hallo,
* Alexander Muthmann [Thu, May 02 2013, 11:10:16AM]:
> Hi Eduard,
> 
> thanks for your reply.
> 
> The output produced is:
> root@internal-services:~# adduser --quiet --system --group
> --no-create-home --home /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng apt-cacher-ng
> adduser: The user `apt-cacher-ng' already exists. Exiting.
> root@internal-services:~# echo $?
> 1
> root@internal-services:~# which adduser
> /usr/sbin/adduser
> 
> Hope this helps?

Maybe, after checking up with adduser developers, there is a theory.

Do you remember when the package has been installed initially?
Could you show the user information for this account, i.e. run:

getent passwd apt-cacher-ng

Or just check the UID, if the UID is outside of the reserved range
(100-999) then something went wrong before. You could try to change the
UIDs or simply delete this account (man deluser) and then recreate it as
system-user with the command mentioned before. And afterwards, you
would need to adapt the permissions of the files to the new UID which
the "new" account got assigned afterwards (i.e. like: chown -R NEWUID
/var/cache/apt-cacher-ng /etc/apt-cacher-ng /var/log/apt-cacher-ng ).

Regards,
Eduard.

Message #25 received at 706382@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Alexander Muthmann <amuthmann@dev-eth0.de>

To: Eduard Bloch <edi@gmx.de>

Cc: 706382@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#706382: apt-cacher-ng: Upgrade of apt-cacher-ng failes

Date: Fri, 10 May 2013 10:36:43 +0200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

sry, i just send the reply to eduard, not the bugs list, therefore here
again:

Ahh great, that seems to be the problem.
The user has the User-ID 25001 as I use an nfs share for the Cache and had
to move the user to this UID.

Is there a change to get apt-cacher-ng running and updating with this UID
or do I have to modify my whole NFS setup?
i just deleted the apt-cacher-ng user and recreated it with a lower UID,
afterwards the upgrade worked fine. Thank you for your help!


On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 11:59 AM, Eduard Bloch <edi@gmx.de> wrote:

> Hallo,
> * Alexander Muthmann [Thu, May 02 2013, 11:10:16AM]:
> > Hi Eduard,
> >
> > thanks for your reply.
> >
> > The output produced is:
> > root@internal-services:~# adduser --quiet --system --group
> > --no-create-home --home /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng apt-cacher-ng
> > adduser: The user `apt-cacher-ng' already exists. Exiting.
> > root@internal-services:~# echo $?
> > 1
> > root@internal-services:~# which adduser
> > /usr/sbin/adduser
> >
> > Hope this helps?
>
> Maybe, after checking up with adduser developers, there is a theory.
>
> Do you remember when the package has been installed initially?
> Could you show the user information for this account, i.e. run:
>
> getent passwd apt-cacher-ng
>
> Or just check the UID, if the UID is outside of the reserved range
> (100-999) then something went wrong before. You could try to change the
> UIDs or simply delete this account (man deluser) and then recreate it as
> system-user with the command mentioned before. And afterwards, you
> would need to adapt the permissions of the files to the new UID which
> the "new" account got assigned afterwards (i.e. like: chown -R NEWUID
> /var/cache/apt-cacher-ng /etc/apt-cacher-ng /var/log/apt-cacher-ng ).
>
> Regards,
> Eduard.
>
>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #30 received at 706382@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Eduard Bloch <edi@gmx.de>

To: control@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#706382: apt-cacher-ng: Upgrade of apt-cacher-ng failes

Date: Mon, 13 May 2013 00:12:45 +0200

clone 706382 -1
retitle -1 Recreating a system user fails when its UID is out of range
reassign -1 adduser
severity -1 minor
thanks

As discussed, the error handling in this case needs some improvement. As
least there should be a meaningful error message telling where the
error originated.

And/or it maybe should not be an error whatsoever, i.e. when the account
exists then there is no need to recreate it.

Regards,
Eduard.

Message #45 received at 708073@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org>

To: 708073@bugs.debian.org

Cc: edi@gmx.de

Subject: Re: adduser: Recreating a system user fails when its UID is out of range

Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2016 02:21:25 -0800

Hello,

On Mon, 13 May 2013 00:12:45 +0200 Eduard Bloch <edi@gmx.de> wrote:
> clone 706382 -1
> retitle -1 Recreating a system user fails when its UID is out of range
> reassign -1 adduser
> severity -1 minor
> thanks
> 
> As discussed, the error handling in this case needs some improvement. As
> least there should be a meaningful error message telling where the
> error originated.
> 
> And/or it maybe should not be an error whatsoever, i.e. when the account
> exists then there is no need to recreate it.
> 

What happened in this case was that adduser was asked to add a system
user while the name is already taken by a *regular* user (maybe that is
the key word missing from the printed message), as determined by the
system UID range.

The system user range can be changed by the administrator in
/etc/adduser.conf if they want to use a different range to determine
what a system user is.

I'd appreciate any suggestions to make this more clear so this confusion
can be avoided in the future.

Thanks and regards
Afif

-- 
Afif Elghraoui | عفيف الغراوي
http://afif.ghraoui.name

Message #48 received at 708073-submitter@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org>

To: 708073-submitter@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Bug#708073 in package adduser marked as pending

Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2017 20:14:08 +0000

Control: tag 708073 pending

Bug #708073 in package adduser reported by you has been fixed in
the adduser/adduser.git Git repository. You can see the changelog below, and
you can check the diff of the fix at:

    https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/adduser/adduser.git/commit/?id=6400c67

---
commit 6400c67d621affb74d12079261e02e8d764b4775
Author: Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org>
Date:   Sat Aug 12 12:42:52 2017 -0400

    Update changelog

diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index d72119d..924c1c6 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,15 @@
+adduser (3.116) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
+
+  * Advise installation of 'perl' rather than 'perl-modules'
+    (Closes: #840982)
+  * Improve distinction between informational and essential messages
+    (Closes: #763055)
+  * Improve message accompanying error code for creating system user
+    (Closes: #708073, #759740)
+  * testsuite: add current directory to module search path
+
+ -- Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org>  Sat, 12 Aug 2017 11:44:19 -0400
+
 adduser (3.115) unstable; urgency=medium
 
   [ Afif Elghraoui ]

Message #55 received at 708073-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org>

To: 708073-close@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Bug#708073: fixed in adduser 3.116

Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2017 20:49:19 +0000

Source: adduser
Source-Version: 3.116

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
adduser, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 708073@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org> (supplier of updated adduser package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

Format: 1.8
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2017 16:05:34 -0400
Source: adduser
Binary: adduser
Architecture: source
Version: 3.116
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Changed-By: Afif Elghraoui <afif@debian.org>
Description:
 adduser    - add and remove users and groups
Closes: 708073 759740 763055 840982 845791
Changes:
 adduser (3.116) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   * Advise installation of 'perl' rather than 'perl-modules'
     (Closes: #840982)
   * Improve distinction between informational and essential messages
     (Closes: #763055)
   * Improve message accompanying error code for creating system user
     (Closes: #708073, #759740)
   * testsuite: add current directory to Perl module search path
   * Use /usr/sbin/nologin instead of /bin/false for default system shell
     (Closes: #845791)
   * Bump Standards-Version to 4.0.1
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