Error in password file?

[Rick Stevens]

On 02/09/2012 03:01 PM, Rick Stevens wrote:
> 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)

Additional note, I just used vipw to add a blank line to the end of 
/etc/passwd and got the same error the OP got when I ran pwck, but with
a "delete line?" prompt.  I didn't accept that and used vipw to delete
the blank and pwck ran clean.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    ricks at alldigital.com -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
-       A squeegee, by any other name, wouldn't sound as funny.      -
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