Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Why did this happen?
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:38:34
Message-Id: 200906302036.50800.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com
In Reply to: [gentoo-user] Why did this happen? by Michael Higgins
1 On Tuesday 30 June 2009 19:54:23 Michael Higgins wrote:
2 > Can anyone speculate as to why this error?
3 >
4 > Is the fix to usermod -s /sbin/nologin for each of these?
5 >
6 >
7 > ebuild log for sys-apps/baselayout-2.0.1 on evolone.org
8 >
9 >
10 > WARN: postinst
11 > The following users have non-existent shells!
12 > apache - /usr/sbin/nologin
13 > cron - /usr/sbin/nologin
14 > ldap - /usr/sbin/nologin
15 > postfix - /usr/sbin/nologin
16 > sshd - /usr/sbin/nologin
17
18 Do not make any changes, this is correct. System users should not have a
19 shell, as the account is never used to log in (not the same thing as dropping
20 privileges to the UID of the account).
21
22 This is a prime example of a daft ebuild. The ebuild should have checked that
23
24 a) the account does not have a shell and
25 b) the account uid falls in the range of system accounts as per login.defs and
26 c) therefore issued no postinst
27
28 You should file a bug.
29
30 --
31 alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com