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Bug 2102

Summary:	No specified shell in passwd allows login
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Joshua Jensen <joshua>
Component:	pam	Assignee:	Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	5.2	CC:	cks-rhbugzilla, gafton
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	1999-04-12 23:29:44 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Joshua Jensen 1999-04-09 23:59:58 UTC

Only tested on RHL 5.2 Intel, but if the last field in
/etc/passwd is cleared, then login IS permitted (with bash I
think), and the specified home directory is ignored and
replace by /

Yes, this IS a mis-configuration, but some sysadmins might
mistakenly think that this is a viable substitute for
/bin/false or /dev/null.

Comment 1 Chris Siebenmann 1999-04-10 03:31:59 UTC

In /etc/passwd, an omitted shell historically means '/bin/sh'
(although not all programs get it right). If it gave one a home
directory of /, it would be broken, but in a quick test on a RH
5.2 Linux system it doesn't seem to.

 I don't think that pam should 'fix' this; we have environments that
need to share the password file between RedHat and other systems,
and those other systems expect the historical behavior for a blank
shell field.

Comment 2 Bill Nottingham 1999-04-12 23:29:59 UTC

The behavior when the shell field is blank is
to use the default login shell; hence, this is normal
behavior.

------- Email Received From  Joshua <jtech.com> 04/13/99 19:19 -------


------- Email Received From  "Michael K. Johnson" <johnsonm> 04/14/99 12:09 -------