Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 215195
system-config-users exit with error after upgrading fc5 > fc6
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:48 EST
Description of problem: launching system-config-users i get: "The user database cannot be read. This problem is most likely caused by a mismatch between /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow or /etc/group and /etc/gshadow. The program will exit now." (in error window) Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: every time Steps to Reproduce: 1.launch system-config-users 2. 3. Actual results: gives an error and exits Expected results: launch user and group management interface Additional info: this error showed up after upgrading fedora core 5 to fedora core 6
$ rpm -q system-config-users system-config-users-1.2.47-1.fc6
This is the result of new error checks. Are you sure that your /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow as well as your /etc/group and /etc/gshadow are consistent, i.e. every entry present in /etc/passwd or /etc/group must be present in /etc/shadow or /etc/gshadow? If you start system-config-users from a terminal window, are there any additional error messages in the terminal window?
no, i'm not sure that they are consistent. but, i remember now some strange things happened on a newly installed fc6: after creating a user with s-c-u, i've launched gdmflexiserver so that the new user can log in. gdm keeps saying that the user/password combo was incorrect. i've ctrl-alt-f1, logged as user, su - , and changed the password again for the new user. still refusing, i've tried to switch back to my working account but didn't find it (for unknown reason). trying to switch back to the newly created display couldn't find it either, so i switched back to text and ctrl-alt del. after reboot, everything was just fine, and the new user could login after gdmflexiserver. repeating the test some other time, logging the new user in gdmflexiserver was ok, but switching back and forth between gui and tui eventually locked keyboard (where was supposed to be gui but the gui was no more)so that i had to ssh and reboot the machine. but that looks like another bug, isn't it? the machine is a new hp d7600. if i launch s-c-u from the gnome terminal, i get no other error. s-c-u was working just fine in fc5. could the error appear because i used both s-c-u and useradd? also, worth mentioning that _a lot_ of errors i get from rpm -Va, most annoyng is: at least one of file's dependencies has changed since prelinking in the mean time: # rpm -V setup S.5....T c /etc/printcap and ]# rpm -V system-config-users S.5....T c /etc/sysconfig/system-config-users and last but no least, thank you very much for your help :)
ok, i've checked: /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow have the same entries the same is true for /etc/group and /etc/gshadow
one day i discovered it works again (for unknown reason)
Glad that it works again. Without further info, I'm closing this bug.