Ubuntu
amavisd-new package

amavisd-new broken user (again) Intrepid

Bug #311277 reported by David Nicholas
14
This bug affects 2 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
amavisd-new (Debian)
Fix Released
Unknown
amavisd-new (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: amavisd-new

Error occurs when reinstalling amavisd-new after purge (apt-get)
Note also english typo below...

Package details: amavisd-new (1:2.6.1.dfsg-2ubuntu1) / Ubuntu server 8.10

Transcript:

1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up amavisd-new (1:2.6.1.dfsg-2ubuntu1) ...
Creating/updating amavis user account...
Broken amavis system user found. To insure data-safety,
it is up to you the local administrator to remove the broken
amavis user, or repair it so that it is sane
dpkg: error processing amavisd-new (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 amavisd-new
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Revision history for this message
Andreas Olsson (andol) wrote :

I can confirm this problem in Intrepid. Doing a full purge of amavisd-new doesn't remove the user amavis, hence causing the reinstall of amavisd-new to fail.

I can confirm the same problem in Hardy.

Changed in amavisd-new:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Scott Kitterman (kitterman) wrote : Re: [Bug 311277] Re: amavisd-new broken user (again) Intrepid

The problem isn't that purge doesn't remove the user (this is normal). The
problem is the continued presence of old transitional code that is no
longer needed.

Changed in amavisd-new:
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Andreas Olsson (andol) wrote :

I'm attaching a debdiff taking care of that "old transitional code that is no longer needed.".

What it basically does it to allow the purged homedir to get (re)created on its own. In the old postinst the only way for the homedir to get created was during adduser, which didn't happen if there already were a present user.

Revision history for this message
Scott Kitterman (kitterman) wrote :

I'll have a look at it later tonight.

Changed in amavisd-new:
assignee: nobody → kitterman
status: Triaged → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Scott Kitterman (kitterman) wrote :

Having looked at the Debian bugs that lead to this code, I'm not sure just dropping it the best answer.

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=367807
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=190414

It seems to me we could get the same result by removing the user on purge and that would be safer.

Changed in amavisd-new:
assignee: kitterman → nobody
status: In Progress → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Andreas Olsson (andol) wrote :

Ok, I'm attaching a new debdiff, now removing the amavis user on purge.

Revision history for this message
Andreas Olsson (andol) wrote :

Understood that patches should foremost be submitted to the development release of Ubuntu. Hence, I'm submitting a new debdiff; this one against the Jaunty version.

Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote :

Sorry, it is a very bad practice to remove system users on package purge. There might still be files or processes left which belong to that user, and the next time you install a package which creates a new system user, that new one would suddenly inherit those files/processes.

Instead, the installation should be made more robust, so that an already existing user is just checked that it has correct properties (system user, etc.)

Changed in amavisd-new:
status: Triaged → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Scott Kitterman (kitterman) wrote :

Debian's solution was to remove the user on purge. I've merged that into Jaunty, so this is 'fixed' there.

* Remove amavis user and group on purge (Closes: #495629)

Changed in amavisd-new:
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: Incomplete → Fix Released
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in amavisd-new:
status: Unknown → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Simon Déziel (sdeziel) wrote :

This bug also affects amavisd-new version 2.5.3-1ubuntu3 in Hardy. Could it be possible to fix the LTS release version too ?

Thanks

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