FS#16929 - [openntpd] user 'ntp': directory '/var/empty' does not exist

Attached to Project: Community Packages
Opened by David Spicer (azleifel) - Friday, 30 October 2009, 19:22 GMT
Last edited by Dan Griffiths (Ghost1227) - Saturday, 07 November 2009, 07:08 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category
Status Closed
Assigned To Vesa Kaihlavirta (vegai)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description:

Since the update from openntpd 3.9p1-7 to 3.9p1-8 I have been getting the error message in the Summary line above each time the openntp daemon is started. I've created /var/empty, chowned it to root and chmod'd it to 700, and I'm hoping that this will fix the problem.

Additional info:
* openntpd 3.9p1-8 x86_64



Steps to reproduce: N/A
This task depends upon

Closed by  Dan Griffiths (Ghost1227)
Saturday, 07 November 2009, 07:08 GMT
Reason for closing:  Not a bug
Additional comments about closing:  This is being moved to a feature request on the filesystems package
Comment by Ju Liu (Arkham) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 00:54 GMT
I can confirm this on i686
Comment by Laszlo Papp (djszapi) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 07:49 GMT
What's the exact error message ?
Comment by David Spicer (azleifel) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 08:37 GMT
I've been a little misleading. It was an error raised by the pwck when it was run by the daily shadow cron job and I copied straight from the email:

user 'ntp': directory '/var/empty' does not exist
pwck: no changes

Creating /var/empty with the permissions I mentioned makes the emails stop.
Comment by Laszlo Papp (djszapi) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 08:39 GMT
Can it be closed then ? It can be solved maybe with scriptlets.
Comment by Jussi Timperi (Beini) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 10:34 GMT
djszapi, That's more of a workaround than a real solution.
Comment by Roman Kyrylych (Romashka) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 10:51 GMT
I cannot confirm this.
http://repos.archlinux.org/wsvn/community/openntpd/repos/community-i686/openntpd.install
The install scriptlet creates the group and the directory.
I have just installed the package and it worked as designed.
Thus I believe there is something wrong on your system.
Comment by Laszlo Papp (djszapi) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 10:52 GMT
works here too.
Comment by Roman Kyrylych (Romashka) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 11:06 GMT
hm, I think I understand where the problem is:
/var/empty is not created by filesystem package,
but openntpd does not create it either.
However it is created by the latest version of openssh package, so that's why I could not reproduce the problem on my machine.

@ Vesa: please take a look how openssh creates /var/empty and do the same in openntpd.
Comment by Jussi Timperi (Beini) - Sunday, 01 November 2009, 11:17 GMT
How about using the -m flag with useradd in openntpd.install. From man useradd:

-m, --create-home
Create the user's home directory if it does not exist. The files
and directories contained in the skeleton directory (which can be
defined with the -k option) will be copied to the home directory.

By default, no home directories are created.

Currently the install does NOT create the directory:

-d, --home HOME_DIR
The new user will be created using HOME_DIR as the value for the
user's login directory. The default is to append the LOGIN name to
BASE_DIR and use that as the login directory name. The directory
HOME_DIR does not have to exist but will not be created if it is
missing.

Comment by Vesa Kaihlavirta (vegai) - Monday, 02 November 2009, 07:41 GMT
The thing is, openntpd doesn't use /var/empty anymore as a privsep directory. That's why it gets removed in the update.

I believe the most correct solution would be to have /var/empty in the filesystems package. Having the possibility that *any package* could accidentally remove /var/empty/ and thus render openssh broken is not good, I would think.

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