Bug 199027

Summary:	Misleading error message on unknown user.
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Ralph Loader <suckfish>
Component:	coreutils	Assignee:	Tim Waugh <twaugh>
Status:	CLOSED UPSTREAM	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	rawhide	CC:	meyering
Target Milestone:	---
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Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2006-07-17 08:36:08 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Ralph Loader 2006-07-16 00:36:27 UTC

Description of problem:

chown can give a misleading and irrelevant error message if a non-existant user
id is given.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

coreutils-5.97-4

How reproducible:

Everytime.

Steps to Reproduce:
1.

# chown sapoqwegfj /dev/ttyS1 
chown: `sapoqwegfj': invalid user

2.

~# chown sapoqwegfj: /dev/ttyS1 
chown: `sapoqwegfj:': cannot get the login group of a numeric UID
  
Actual results:

The second error message "cannot get the login group of a numeric UID" does not
indicate the actual problem.

Expected results:

The second error message be identical to the first, or at least should indicate
that the given user name does not exist.


Additional info:

Comment 1 Jim Meyering 2006-07-16 07:04:55 UTC

Thanks for the report.
I've just fixed this upstream.  Here's the ChangeLog entry:

* userspec.c (parse_with_separator): Say "invalid spec" rather than
the sometimes erroneous "cannot get the login group of a numeric UID"
for a spec like "not-a-username:" or "1:".  Reported by
suckfish@ihug.co.nz in https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/199027.