The usermode-1.85 source does not compile on my box because configure cannot find libpam and libpam_misc: checking for pam_start... no checking for pam_start in -lpam... no /usr/src/usermode-1.85/configure: line 7597: dl: command not found checking for misc_conv... no checking for misc_conv in -lpam_misc... no config.log: configure:7530: checking for pam_start in -lpam configure:7560: gcc -o conftest -g -O2 conftest.c -lpam >&5 /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.0.2/../../../libpam.so: undefined reference to `dlerror' /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.0.2/../../../libpam.so: undefined reference to `dlclose' /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.0.2/../../../libpam.so: undefined reference to `dlopen' /usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.0.2/../../../libpam.so: undefined reference to `dlsym' collect2: ld returned 1 exit status Apparently in configure.in AC_CHECK_LIB the action-if-not-found is missing: AC_CHECK_FUNC(pam_start,,[AC_CHECK_LIB(pam,pam_start,PAM_LIBS="-lpam -ldl",dl)]) AC_CHECK_FUNC(misc_conv,,[AC_CHECK_LIB(pam_misc,misc_conv,PAM_LIBS="-lpam_misc $PAM_LIBS",$PAM_LIBS)])
It seems you haven't installed glibc-devel on your system. Usermode has an explicit dependency to pam-devel. So that rpmbuild won't let you go on building the package when libpam.so is missing.
I don't have a RedHat system. I tried to build usermode-1.85.tar.bz2 from the usermode-1.85-2.2.src.rpm by hand. The AC_CHECK_FUNC tests for pam_start and misc_conv succeed only if I configure with LIBS="-lpam -ldl -lpam_misc". The AC_CHECK_LIB tests which try -lpam and -lpam_misc explicitely are broken, passing dl and $PAM_LIBS as action-if-not-found instead of other-libraries, and dl should be -ldl.
Confirmed. I fixed it upstream, thanks. The fixed configure.in will be present since usermode-1.86-1 release. I'll close this bug after it's released. Thanks.
Closing bug per previous comment.