Bug 1979

Summary: (not nc, nscd!) nscd not PAM passwd format compliant
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Raw Hide Reporter: Jay Freeman <saurik>
Component: ncAssignee: Bill Nottingham <notting>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 1.0CC: rvokal
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-04-06 00:03:00 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Embargoed:

Description Jay Freeman 1999-04-04 08:12:57 UTC
I found out a while ago that PAM/shadow allows for blank
lines and comments inside of the /etc/passwd file, and have
been using that to organize my users.  Earlier today, I ran
a program (eggdrop 1.3.23) using su -c, and the console
froze, and nscd logged these errors to the syslog (some
multiple times):

Apr  3 14:18:15 ironclad nscd: 326: short write in
cache_addhst: Broken pipe
Apr  3 14:18:15 ironclad nscd: 326: cannot write result:
Broken pipe
Apr  3 14:18:15 ironclad nscd: 326: short write in
cache_addpw: Broken pipe

:and then refused to serve anymore passwd lookups, keeping
me from logging into the computer (and making any ls -l or
ps process hang and need to be stopped with ctrl-c).  I was
forced to reboot each time (although one time I had another
console open that I was able to use to kill all the nscd
processes which fixed it).  I propose that nscd not be
defaulted to starting at startup during the installation
program so that users have to make a concious effort to deem
it neccessary to use the daemon.

BTW, nscd should be added to the component menu for
bugzilla.

Comment 1 Cristian Gafton 1999-04-06 00:03:59 UTC
empty lines in the passwd file are ILLEGAL. This is not supposed to be
a supported feature.

I do agree that starting nscd by default is unnecessary, so I changed
that in the current glibc rpms.