Description of problem: Says something about "directory required for priviledge separation" and fails to start. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): openssh-server-5.8p2-15.fc16.1.x86_64 How reproducible: 100% Steps to Reproduce: 1. yum update 2. reboot Actual results: Fails to start Expected results: Starts and works Additional info: Workaround: mkdir /var/empty/sshd [root@niphredil zaitcev]# rpm -qf /var/empty/sshd file /var/empty/sshd is not owned by any package Suggesting to make sure /var/empty/sshd is created at install time and add it to spec file.
(In reply to comment #0 > > Suggesting to make sure /var/empty/sshd is created at install time > and add it to spec file. Something "funny" is going on here. After 'rpm -qlv openssh-server-5.8p2-15.fc16.1 | grep empty' the following shows up: drwx--x--x 2 root root 0 Jul 21 07:13 /var/empty/sshd/ (yes, with a trailing slash while this character is missing there for a working openssh-server-5.8p2-14.fc16.1), OTOH even after restoring /var/empty/sshd/ both 'rpm -qf /var/empty/sshd/' and 'rpm -qf /var/empty/sshd' reply with "file /var/empty/sshd is not owned by any package". An information in /var/log/messages is spectacularly unhelpful. One sees: systemd[1]: Unit sshd.service entered failed state. sshd.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=255 and that is it. Luckily, with an access to a console, one may try to start sshd "by hand" and that prints 'Missing privilege separation directory: /var/empty/sshd'.
There are additional messages in /var/log/secure, but I only found about them after I figured it out.
This all was caused by a broken rpm in the buildroot when 5.8p2-15.fc16.1 was built. It caused adding the / at the end of the /var/empty/sshd in the filelist. Unfortunately for the poor ones who installed the openssh-server-5.8p2-15.fc16.1 simple update with openssh-server-5.8p2-16.fc16.1 will not help as the rpm in case the old package contains /var/empty/sshd/ in the filelist and the new package /var/empty/sshd in the filelist happily removes the /var/empty/sshd dir as part of the cleanup of the old package. Next update or forced update with the 5.8p2-16.fc16.1 will finally create the dir and leave it as is. Or you can of course create it manually with 'mkdir -m 711 /var/empty/sshd' I'd say though that the rpm should recognize /var/empty/sshd and /var/empty/sshd/ as the same and not to cleanup it on upgrade. So reopening and reassigning to rpm.
*** Bug 725430 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 728707 ***
*** Bug 740896 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***