Bug 35369 – Upgrade to openssh 3.7.1_p2_r1 did not recreate sshd user

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Portage Development

[Description Josh Knowles 2003-12-08 11:45:54 UTC]

After upgrading to openssh 3.7.1_p2_r1 the sshd user was deleted but not 
property re-added therefore sshd would not restart.  After adding this user 
manually everything worked.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. emerge openssh
2. /etc/init.d/sshd restart
3. 

Actual Results:  
Error printed to screen saying that Priviledged user does not exist

Expected Results:  
Should have restarted with no errors.

Portage 2.0.49-r15 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.3, glibc-2.3.2-r3, 2.4.20-gentoo-
r9)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.4.20-gentoo-r9 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine)
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.10
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-O3 -march=i686 -funroll-loops -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER="gcc3"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /var/qmail/control /usr/share/config /usr/kde/2/share/conf
ig /usr/kde/3/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=i686 -funroll-loops -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="sandbox ccache autoaddcvs"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu 
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY=""
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 oss apm crypt cups encode foomaticdb gif gpm gtk2 imlib jpeg libg++ 
libwww mad mikmod motif ncurses nls opengl pdflib png sdl spell svga truetype 
xml2 xv zlib gdbm berkdb slang readline tcpd pam ssl perl python -arts -avi -
gtk -kde -gnome -mpeg -oggvorbis -qt -quicktime -X -xmms apache2 vhosts java 
junit kerberos ldap mysql ruby ruby18 sasl"

[Comment 1 Corey Betka 2003-12-09 06:03:28 UTC]

Are you sure the user was missing, not just the privsep dir of /var/empty?

I've had this occur, seemingly randomly (4 out of 7 gentoo boxes):

pugsley bin # /etc/init.d/sshd restart
 * Stopping sshd...                                                       [ ok ]
 * Starting sshd...
Missing privilege separation directory: /var/empty                        [ !! ]

'mkdir /var/empty;chown root.root /var/empty;chmod 0755 /var/empty' fixes it, but something strange is going on.

[Comment 2 Daniel Ahlberg (RETIRED) 2003-12-12 14:12:43 UTC]

Did you install this as a binary package?

[Comment 3 Josh Knowles 2003-12-12 14:14:40 UTC]

Yes I am sure the user was missing, did a grep of /etc/passwd and didnt find anything, once I created the user everything worked fine.

No, didnt install as a binary.

[Comment 4 Daniel Ahlberg (RETIRED) 2004-01-03 07:22:24 UTC]

I've changed the way the sshd user are added. This should hopefully fix this issue.