From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041215 Firefox/1.0 Red Hat/1.0-12.EL4 Description of problem: nfs-utils makes a nfsnobody user which on 64b platforms is 4294967294 106 # Define the correct unsigned uid value for 32 or 64 bit archs 107 %ifarch %{all_32bit_archs} 108 %define nfsnobody_uid 65534 109 %else 110 %define nfsnobody_uid 4294967294 111 %endif 112 113 # If UID 65534 (or 4294967294 64bit archs) is unassigned, create user "nfsnobody" 114 cat /etc/passwd | cut -d':' -f 3 | grep --quiet %{nfsnobody_uid} 2>/dev/null 115 if [ "$?" -eq 1 ]; then 116 /usr/sbin/useradd -c "Anonymous NFS User" -r \ 117 -s /sbin/nologin -u %{nfsnobody_uid} -d /var/lib/nfs nfsnobody 2>/dev/null || : 118 fi From the lastlog man page they have: CAVEATS Large gaps in uid numbers will cause the lastlog program to run longer with no output to the screen (i.e. if mmdf=800 and last uid=170, pro- gram will appear to hang as it processes uid 171-799). Consequently when the nfs-utils package is installed /var/log/lastlog gets turned into a HUGE sparse file and lastlog takes a long time to run because of the huge gap. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install the nfs-utils package Actual Results: /var/log/lastlog is turned into a really large sparse file. Lastlog takes a long time to run. The customer discovered this when one of their backup like systems died when confronted with the 1.2TB lastlog file. Expected Results: The lastlog should not have been so large. Additional info: This bugzilla is tied to IT #64891. It has been discussed that nfs-utils needs to have an option in it to not add the nfsnobody user to the last database. Bugzilla ID 146214 mentions a new shadow-utils from CVS in which there is a new option "-l". This option tells useradd not to add the user to the last database. nfs-utils somehow needs to use this option so it does not add the nfsnobody user to the last database.
*** Bug 146214 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This also has an intersting effect on backup utilities that interact with lastlog. IBMs tivoli client spooled through 64GB before I killed it.
Also RHEL4/U2 update is already built 2:4.0.3-49.RHEL4
This is fixed in RHEL3 with nfs-utils-1.0.6-41EL and is fixed in RHEL4 with nfs-utils-1.0.6-60.EL4
This fix is also in nfs-utils-1.0.7-11 available through the FC4 testing channel
Note: the updated RHEL3 and RHEL4 versions of both the nfs-utils and newly required shadow-utils packages are available in: http://people.redhat.com/steved/bz149407/
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2005-697.html
FYI: the added Requires: shadow-utils should really be: Requires(pre): shadow-utils as nfs-utils certainly doesn't Require (the newer) shadow-utils after it's already been installed. (Or should I file this as a separate bug?)