[Adduser-devel] Bug#336843: adduser: removes user from group if /etc/group file ends with ":"

[Marc Haber]

Package: adduser
Version: 3.77
Severity: normal

If a line in /etc/group ends with a colon, adduser user group removes
the last user listed in /etc/group:

$ cat /etc/group | grep ^adm
adm:x:4:Debian-console-log,mh:
$ sudo adduser --debug Debian-exim adm
Adding user Debian-exim' to group adm'...
Done.
$ cat /etc/group | grep ^adm
adm:x:4:Debian-console-log,Debian-exim
$

Setting $verbose=2 prior to the systemcall() in the adduser code
reveals that adduser calls
/usr/bin/gpasswd -M Debian-console-log,Debian-exim adm
so it is really adduser's fault that mh vanishes from the user list.

Greetings
Marc


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.14-zgsrv
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=de_DE (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages adduser depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.4.58     Debian configuration management sy
ii  passwd                        1:4.0.13-3 change and administer password and
ii  perl-base                     5.8.7-7    The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

adduser recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
* adduser/homedir-permission: true