Bug 694645

Summary: usermod, userdel, and pwck unable to lock password file
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Reporter: Kevin Reding <kevin.reding>
Component: shadow-utilsAssignee: Peter Vrabec <pvrabec>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: BaseOS QE Security Team <qe-baseos-security>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 5.5CC: tmraz
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2011-08-22 08:45:11 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:

Description Kevin Reding 2011-04-07 20:25:59 UTC 
Description of problem:
We are unable to use usermod, userdel, or pwck becasue it states is cannot lock the password file.  All permissions are default, there are no lock files created.  The passwd and useradd commands work properly.

When running strace against the failing commands it fails at creating a temp password file (/etc/passwd.<PID>) with error (Permission Denied).  However useradd works just fine in creating the temp password file.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
# uname -a
Linux meu02a01.71meu.sie.usmc.smil.mil 2.6.18-194.32.1.el5PAE #1 SMP Mon Dec 20 11:00:23 EST 2010 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux


How reproducible:
We have been unable to reproduce the error manually.  We only know the issue occured after running scripts to harden the server via US Government guidelines.
  
Actual results:
# userdel -r kreding
userdel: unable to lock password file
Comment 1 Peter Vrabec 2011-08-22 08:41:04 UTC 
Kevin, could you specify which system configuration change caused this issue.
Comment 2 RHEL Program Management 2011-08-22 08:45:11 UTC 
Development Management has reviewed and declined this request.  You may appeal
this decision by reopening this request.