Bug#537233: /usr/bin/users-admin: users-admin crashes /etc/group

[Jakob Schuerz]

Package: gnome-system-tools
Version: 2.22.0-3
Severity: critical
File: /usr/bin/users-admin
Justification: causes serious data loss


I tried to add a new user with users-admin over gnome-control-center, and then /etc/group was overwritten with a new version including only two lines.
nogroup and a group named with the name from the new user and number 0.

/etc/group- was the same. 

Fortunately i found a backup in /var/backup which was 10 days old. 

This happend the 3rd time on two different Systems (both Debian Lenny).

Now i reconstructed the /etc/group-file, but now i get no acces to users-admin, also trying this as root. Wheter from an xterm nor from gnome-control-center.

regards jakob


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 5.0.2
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_AT.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=de_AT.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages gnome-system-tools depends on:
ii  gconf2                  2.22.0-1         GNOME configuration database syste
ii  gksu                    2.0.0-8          graphical frontend to su
ii  libatk1.0-0             1.22.0-1         The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libc6                   2.7-18           GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2               1.6.4-7          The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3             1.2.1-5          simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libgconf2-4             2.22.0-1         GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglib2.0-0            2.16.6-2         The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnomevfs2-0          1:2.22.0-5       GNOME Virtual File System (runtime
ii  libgtk2.0-0             2.12.12-1~lenny1 The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libnautilus-extension1  2.20.0-7         libraries for nautilus components 
ii  liboobs-1-4             2.22.0-2         GObject based interface to system-
ii  libpango1.0-0           1.20.5-5         Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  perl                    5.10.0-19        Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  system-tools-backends   2.6.0-2lenny3    System Tools to manage computer co

Versions of packages gnome-system-tools recommends:
ii  gnome-control-center        1:2.22.2.1-2 utilities to configure the GNOME d

Versions of packages gnome-system-tools suggests:
ii  ntp               1:4.2.4p4+dfsg-8lenny2 Network Time Protocol daemon and u
ii  samba-common      2:3.2.5-4lenny6        Samba common files used by both th
pn  wvdial            <none>                 (no description available)

-- no debconf information