Bug 480632

Summary:	usermod with -u option does not check the sanity of home directory
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Lev Shamardin <shamardin>
Component:	shadow-utils	Assignee:	Peter Vrabec <pvrabec>
Status:	CLOSED UPSTREAM	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	high	Docs Contact:
Priority:	high
Version:	10	CC:	pvrabec, tmraz
Target Milestone:	---
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Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	2009-04-14 10:27:11 UTC	Type:	---
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Embargoed:

Description Lev Shamardin 2009-01-19 15:07:26 UTC

Description of problem:
usermod when used with -u option blindly tries to change the ownership of all files in home directory to a new uid. This is not a good idea if the home directory is set to '/'.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
shadow-utils-4.0.18.1-22.fc8

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. usermod -d / someuser
2. usermod -u 1234 someuser
  
Actual results:
Broken system.

Expected results:
Error message or warning message and no change of ownership on files.

Additional info:
I've ran into this bug by an accident while tuning a server running Fedora 8. I was fixing uid of users for compliance to a new local policy, and tried to change the uid of the user 'pulse' which had default home directory '/' on fedora 8 installation. Fortunately hit Ctrl-C just in time.

Comment 1 Peter Vrabec 2009-04-02 09:37:22 UTC

This is not a bug, but I have suggested a small change in behaviour that could help.
See upstream: 
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-shadow-devel/2009-April/007065.html

Comment 2 Lev Shamardin 2009-04-02 09:45:30 UTC

Well, classification of such 'features' as bugs or features is a matter of philosophy.

Anyway, I completely agree with your proposed change. I would also suggest to add some option like 'force chown_tree anyway'.