Bug 11947 - mkpasswd name conflict between shadow-utils and expect
Summary: mkpasswd name conflict between shadow-utils and expect
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED RAWHIDE
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: shadow-utils
Version: 6.1
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Bernhard Rosenkraenzer
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2000-06-07 13:56 UTC by Ben Scott
Modified: 2008-05-01 15:37 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2000-06-15 03:06:20 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Ben Scott 2000-06-07 13:56:33 UTC
PROBLEM:

A utility by the name of "mkpasswd" is present in both the expect (as
/usr/bin/mkpasswd) and shadow-utils (as /usr/sbin/mkpasswd) packages.  This
is confusing and could cause obscure failures in anything depending on
mkpasswd but using a different PATH.

There is also a man page associated with each utility (section 1 for
expect, section 8 for shadow-utils).

EXAMPLE:

$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/mkpasswd 
expect-5.28-30
$ rpm -qf /usr/sbin/mkpasswd 
shadow-utils-19990827-2
$ which mkpasswd
/usr/bin/mkpasswd
$ mkpasswd
UTu3mwuw8
$ su -
Password:
# which mkpasswd
/usr/sbin/mkpasswd
# mkpasswd
mkpasswd: no DBM database on system - no action performed

ANALYSIS:

mkpasswd from shadow-utils is a system utility, and should not be changed.

mkpasswd from expect is simply an example program, albeit a useful one. 
Renaming it to something like "genpasswd" (generate password) or
"mkpasswd-expect" would allow it to continue to be available.

AFFECTED RELEASES:

I see the problem in Red Hat Linux 6.1 and 6.2.  It likely exists in other
releases as well.

I selected "shadow-utils" as the "Component" for this bug report because
"expect" was not listed.  (Yes, I am aware you can create new components.) 
Red Hat may wish to create an "expect" component and attach this bug to it
as well (if you can do that).

Comment 1 Bernhard Rosenkraenzer 2000-06-26 18:16:48 UTC
Thanks, fixed in 7.0.
There is no expect component because expect is not a package by itself:

rpm -qi `rpm -qf /usr/bin/expect` |grep RPM

shows expect is part of the tcltk package (and therefore component).


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