Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 98314
"up2date -u --nox &" is a very bad karma thing to do, when non-su.
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:55:23 EDT
Description of problem: up2date -u --nox & when run by non-su asks for su password and echoes plaintext to terminal + plus it fails to authenticate (actually tries to excecute the password as a command) and then the up2date process dies in the background. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): up2date-3.1.23-1 How reproducible: 100% on this system and others down to RH7.2 that I have tested. Steps to Reproduce: 1. As non-su, in X (KDE), in xterm or similar. 2. $ up2date -u --nox & 3. Bingo Actual results: Apart from the echoing, it tries to execute the password as a shell command" Expected results: Smooth updating with no echo to terminal.
This looks to be a bug with the usermode package (which contains the parts that actually prompt for the passwords and whatnot) I can duplicate similar behaviour with other utilities. Reassigning there.
Backgrounded applications aren't allowed to read input from the terminal, so when the backgrounded instance of userhelper attempts to read the password, it is suspended. This is normal. You'll need to foreground the process temporarily to give it the password, after which you can suspend and background it by typing ^Z and then using the "bg" command. Closing as NOTABUG.