[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#401038: useradd: Issue with the position of the -u option

[Laurent Jourdren]

Package: passwd
Version: 1:4.0.18.1-5
Severity: normal


There is an issue with the position of uid option "-u". 
When this option is after the group option (-g), useradd fail to create the user.

The following command lines show the matter:

# /usr/sbin/useradd -d /home/toto -g smbusers -s /bin/false -u 15555 toto
useradd : argument numérique « 15555 » incorrect
# /usr/sbin/useradd -d /home/toto -g smbusers -u 15555 -s /bin/false toto
useradd : argument numérique « 15555 » incorrect

Whereas when the "-u" is before the "-g" option, the user is correctly created.
# /usr/sbin/useradd -d /home/toto -u 15555 -g smbusers -s /bin/false toto

WARNING: This bug cause an error of during user creation using adduser command of the adduser package which call useradd in its process:

# adduser --quiet --home /home/toto --shell /bin/false --uid 1555 --gid 1000 --disabled-password --gecos 'titi toto' toto
useradd : argument numérique « 1555 » incorrect
adduser : « /usr/sbin/useradd -d /home/toto -g smbusers -s /bin/false -u 1555 toto » a renvoyé le code d'erreur 3.
Abandon.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18.1-munin
Locale: LANG=fr_FR at euro, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR at euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)

Versions of packages passwd depends on:
ii  debianutils                 2.17         Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  libc6                       2.3.6.ds1-7  GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libpam-modules              0.79-4       Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam0g                    0.79-4       Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libselinux1                 1.32-3       SELinux shared libraries
ii  login                       1:4.0.18.1-5 system login tools

passwd recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
  passwd/password-mismatch:
  passwd/username:
  passwd/password-empty:
  passwd/make-user: true
  passwd/md5: false
  passwd/title:
  passwd/user-uid:
  passwd/shadow: true
  passwd/username-bad:
  passwd/user-fullname: