Ubuntu
logwatch package

  1. Bug #1890751
  2. Comment #4

Comment 4 for bug 1890751

Revision history for this message
Bryce Harrington (bryce) wrote :

See also:
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pam/+bug/1860826
  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=674857#25
  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=931899

"FWIW, the latest login upload to unstable (1:4.7-1) dropped support for /etc/securetty and removed that file on upgrades, due to the numerous complaints it caused... This lead to complaints by pam_unix in the system logs on every login, see #931899."

So the warning is superfluous, and merely serves to cause confusion for other unrelated bugs (e.g. LP #1860826 comments 8-12).

Apparently a workaround is to remove "nullok_secure" from the auth line in /etc/pam.d/common-auth.

Logwatch sounds unsure about carrying this change upstream, but given the above I think it is worth carrying in the Ubuntu delta at least. When LP: #1860826 is resolved for -devel and all supported LTS' the logwatch delta could be dropped, although the messages likely will linger in log files and thus show up in "--range All" for some time.

focal and groovy have login 1:4.8.1-1 so are affected, but bionic has 1:4.5-1 so this is only applicable for SRU to focal.