Error in password file?

[Rick Stevens]

On 02/09/2012 01:38 PM, Marvin Kosmal wrote:
> On 2/9/12, Rick Stevens<rstevens at corp.alldigital.com>  wrote:
>> On 02/09/2012 09:31 AM, Marvin Kosmal wrote:
>>> On 2/9/12, Aaron Konstam<akonstam at sbcglobal.net>   wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 2012-02-08 at 14:43 -0800, Marvin Kosmal wrote:
>>>>> On 2/8/12, don fisher<hdf3 at comcast.net>   wrote:
>>>>>> When I execute pwck to verify integrity of password files and received
>>>>>> the following:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> sudo pwck
>>>>>> user 'adm': directory '/var/adm' does not exist
>>>>>> user 'uucp': directory '/var/spool/uucp' does not exist
>>>>>> user 'gopher': directory '/var/gopher' does not exist
>>>>>> user 'avahi-autoipd': directory '/var/lib/avahi-autoipd' does not exist
>>>>>> user 'oprofile': directory '/home/oprofile' does not exist
>>>>>> user 'saslauth': directory '/var/empty/saslauth' does not exist
>>>>>> user 'pulse': directory '/var/run/pulse' does not exist
>>>>>> invalid password file entry
>>>>>>
>>>>>> How should this be fixed?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Don
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't believe every user has a directory..
>>>>>
>>>>> I think you are  "Good to GO!"
>>>>>
>>>>> Marvin
>>>>
>>>> I don't know if you are good to go but when I run: sudo pwck
>>>> on my machine except the last entry is:
>>>> pwck: no changes
>>>>
>>>> instead of: invalid password file entry
>>>>
>>>> so that is the output that would worry me. It seems you have an invalid
>>>> entry in the passwd file. It would be nice if the program gave you a
>>>> hint which entry it is complaining about.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> =======================================================================
>>>> Of course you can't flap your arms and fly to the moon. After a while
>>>> you'd run out of air to push against.
>>>> =======================================================================
>>>> Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> HI
>>>
>>> I gave my answer based on three boxes I have they yield similar
>>> results.   Not all users will have a directory.
>>>
>>> I stand by my answer..
>>
>> Yes, users do NOT have to have a home directory (especially users that
>> are primarily there as "owners" of daemons and such and have a shell
>> of /sbin/nologin).
>>
>> The "invalid password file entry" error probably indicates a blank line
>> at the end of either /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow, so that's the first
>> place I'd look.  Try
>>
>> 	$ sudo vipw -p        (edits /etc/passwd safely)
>> 	$ sudo vipw -s        (edits /etc/shadow safely)
>>
>> and check to make sure there aren't any blank lines in the files.  Not
>> sure if pwck chokes on NIS-style entries (e.g. a username of "+")
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> - Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    ricks at alldigital.com -
>> - AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
>> -                                                                    -
>> -      On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say...  oh, somewhere in there.     -
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
> Thanks for the come back..
>
> I did the vipw -p and vipw -s and they all look identical  ..No blank lines..

The question is are there any blank lines at the end?  That can be 
difficult to see in an editor.  When using vipw, try entering ":$"
(without the quotes, just colon-dollarsign).  That should put you on
the last line of the file, which should contain data.  If that's a
blank line, there's your answer.

Using "cat" can also tell you something.  If you (as root) do "cat
/etc/passwd", make sure that the command prompt appears IMMEDIATELY
after the data.  If there's a blank line between the output and the
prompt, you have a blank line at the end of the file.

Samples:
	Good (no blank line at end of file):
	[root at prophead server]# cat /tmp/wook
	1
	2
	3
	4
	[root at prophead server]#

	Bad (blank line at end of file):
	[root at prophead server]# cat /tmp/wook
	1
	2
	3
	4

	[root at prophead server]# vi /tmp/wook

("/tmp/wook" is just a scratch filename I used)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    ricks at alldigital.com -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
-            The gene pool could use a little chlorine.              -
----------------------------------------------------------------------