[Virtual-pkg-base-maintainers] Bug#832553: base: Create Admin User Password Paradox

[Dan Escudero]

Package: base
Severity: important

Dear Maintainer,

I have recently installed jessie on my laptop. Everything was going fine
until I tried to create a new admin user. When I created this new admin user, I
selected the "Set password on next login" option.
This new admin user credential, which had NO PASSWORD set, superceded my
sudo/root password; when I attempted to unlock the users, the system asked for
the new admin password (which had never been set!) and would not accept any
other options. I was effectively locked out of my own admin privileges.
Failed work-around: I logged out and attempted to login to my new admin user
account so I could set the first-time password. Upon so doing, the bloody thing
asks me for a password!!! I spent the next fifteen minutes cursing and reeling
at the ludicrous paradox I was sure only I could find myself in.
Successful work-around:
Step 1: In Recovery Mode (as root): useradd Danny2 --group sudo; passwd Danny2
[...]
*** The offending passwordless admin user account had to be removed.
Step 2: userdel Danny
Lessons learned: do not click the box that says “Set password on next
login”. It's a trick.



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.5
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)