[Adduser-devel] Bug#353032: adduser: Adduser tries to print new system user ID before it's defined

[Kevin B. McCarty]

Package: adduser
Version: 3.83
Severity: minor

Hi,

If adduser is called with the --system option without a specific UID, it
complains "Use of uninitialized value in printf" (note the 3rd and 4th
lines below).

benjo (sid)[2]:/home/kmccarty# adduser --system --ingroup nogroup --home /tmp bar
adduser: Warning: The home dir you specified already exists.
Use of uninitialized value in printf at /usr/sbin/adduser line 334.
Adding system user `bar' with uid ...
Adding new user `bar' (107) with group `nogroup'.
The home directory `/tmp' already exists.  Not copying from `/etc/skel'
adduser: Warning: that home directory does not belong to the user you are currently creating

The problem is that line 334 of the adduser script tries to print the
new UID before it is defined on lines 336 and following.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.8-2-386
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages adduser depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.4.70     Debian configuration management sy
ii  passwd                        1:4.0.14-6 change and administer password and
ii  perl-base                     5.8.8-2    The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

adduser recommends no packages.

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

regards,

-- 
Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty at princeton.edu>   Physics Department
WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/    Princeton University
GPG: public key ID 4F83C751                 Princeton, NJ 08544