Bug#319138: [Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#319138: passwd: install fails: shadowconfig not found

[Christian Perrier]

Quoting Marc Haber (mh+debian-bugs at zugschlus.de):
> Package: passwd
> Version: 1:4.0.3-38
> Severity: normal
> 
> Hi,
> 
> passwd purged. apt-get install passwd:
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree... Done
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   passwd
> 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 55 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0B/511kB of archives.
> After unpacking 1544kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Preconfiguring packages ...
> (Reading database ... 17809 files and directories currently installed.)
> Unpacking passwd (from .../passwd_1%3a4.0.3-38_i386.deb) ...
> /var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/preinst: line 33: shadowconfig: command not found
> dpkg: error processing
> /var/cache/apt/archives/passwd_1%3a4.0.3-38_i386.deb (--unpack):
>  subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 127
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  /var/cache/apt/archives/passwd_1%3a4.0.3-38_i386.deb
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
> 
> Judging from the dpkg manpage, preinst is executed before unpack. So
> you cannot use programs from your package in preinst. Or at least, you
> cannot fail if programs from your package ar not yet there.

Hmmm, this comes from the supposedly fixed for #316219. The fix was
obviously broken as you mention.

The point of this fix was activating shadow passwords on *new*
installs and, because of the above, this completely fails its goals...

As the point was running "shadowconfig on" on new installs, the best
way to handle this is moving the "shadowconfig on" line to postinst
rather than preinst and run it only when the script is run with
"install" as argument (not with "reconfigure").

Comments?