Bug 754206

Thanks for the report.

Maybe it is related to bug in previous version of bash - I'm not sure if vsftpd is checking /etc/shells entries. Anyway, can you please try to update to latest bash package and reinstall it again?

For more information take a look at bug #752827

Thanks for the reply.

Might there be some confusion here, or is there a new version of
bash I can't find?

The problem I'm having is with the latest update of bash (4.2.10-5 on
the Fedora server updates directory). The older version of bash (on the distro DVD) does not have the ftp problem.

I had seen the /etc/shells problem bit that didn't seem to apply,
in fact the /etc/shells files on all my F16 machines do contain
/bin/bash (I checked before posting the above report).

It was my suspicion that, in fixing the /etc/shells problem, the ftp
problem has been introduced.

(In reply to comment #2)
> Thanks for the reply.
> 
> Might there be some confusion here, or is there a new version of
> bash I can't find?

bash-4.2.10-4.fc16 should be the latest

> 
> The problem I'm having is with the latest update of bash (4.2.10-5 on
> the Fedora server updates directory). The older version of bash (on the distro
> DVD) does not have the ftp problem.
> 
> I had seen the /etc/shells problem bit that didn't seem to apply,
> in fact the /etc/shells files on all my F16 machines do contain
> /bin/bash (I checked before posting the above report).
> 
> It was my suspicion that, in fixing the /etc/shells problem, the ftp
> problem has been introduced.

The only change between -4 and -5 bash packages was in the scriptlet handling /etc/shells. Can you please recheck if /bin/bash is in /etc/shells? And if it's there, is your ftp working?

> bash-4.2.10-4.fc16 should be the latest
Typo: bash-4.2.10-5.fc16 is the latest...

Aha! Thanks. I looked at /etc/shells on the wrong machine at the wrong time -
apologies for that.

With the old bash (4.2.10-4) my /etc/shells contains:

/sbin/nologin
/bin/dash
/bin/tcsh
/bin/csh
/bin/zsh
/bin/bash
/bin/sh

and ftp works (as vsftpd looks at /etc/shells).
Whenever the new bash (4.2.10-5) is installed it changes my /etc/shells to:

/sbin/nologin
/bin/dash
/bin/tcsh
/bin/csh
/bin/zsh

ergo ftp doesn't work (for users of bash/sh) unless I add /bin/bash
manually. Doing a "yum downgrade bash" reverses the process.

It makes sense at last. I'm assuming the removal of shells from
/etc/shells isn't intentional - or is it?

OK, I will explain what's going on here.
When you upgrade from -4 to -5, the post scriptlet of -5 is run (adds /bin/bash if necessary) and then postun scriptel of -4 is run (always remove /bin/bash). The last step was buggy and was in -4 package. However when you reinstall, upgrade or remove -4 package postun is always run. In -5 package, the postun is fixed, so /bin/bash is removed only when removing bash (not removed when reinstalling or upgrading). So when you upgrade from -4 to -5 you have to reinstall -5 again and /bin/bash will be /etc/shells.

I don't know about the best solution for this problem. Even if I create another newer package (-6) it doesn't make sure that /bin/bash will be there, just because people can upgrade from -4 and thus /bin/bash will not be in /etc/shells.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'll resolve it by updating the package
and then manually adding /bin/sh and /bin/bash to /etc/shells.

Had same problem as well, and adding /bin/bash to /etc/shells did fix the problem for me too.  Running the -5 bash version on server.

-- 
Fedora Bugzappers volunteer triage team
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 752827 ***