Re: Please verify these 2 OpenBSD Bugs (FAQ, adduser, login.conf)

[Mark Farquaad <markfarquaad@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 11:04:30 +0100 (CET), Otto Moerbeek <otto@drijf.net> wrote:

> Again, read group(5). 

I did. I don't see how any of that information should help here.

> If the primary group is wheel, there's no need to
> add the user to the wheel group in /etc/group. It has always been this
> way, and su(1) works. /etc/group is used to record _secondary_ groups.

Have you tried this?
I as a newbie think that's incorrect.
If in the above example, where foobar is NOT in the wheel group
in /etc/group, I get the following output when logging in as foobar:

login: foobar
Password: *******

Last login: ... 
Welcome to OpenBSD... <snip>

$ su
Password: ****** (correct root password)
you are not in group wheel
sorry

> No, there is no problem. This would violate long standing behavior. I
> repeat: this is not a bug.

To me it looks like the opposite. There is a problem, although 
probably a long standing one. But I don't see how that would make
the problem smaller.
You think this is not a bug. Have you fully considered what I have
reported here and tested it yourself?

Are you in charge of the adduser program in OpenBSD?
If not, I think I should go ahead and forward this "problem"
to bugs@openbsd.org, no? - Even if it *is* possible to operate
adduser to get correct results, if you know exactly how to.
Using adduser the way I did is quite a natural way to add a user
to the wheel group. Thus it *should* not create the problems
it does. - At least that's my oppinion.
When using adduser the way I did, it does *not* produce the
results one expects, thus it might be considered a bug, no?

As Matthias Kilian  wrote:

> There's a little caveat with su(1), which may indeed cause some
> confusion:

> If group 0 (normally ``wheel'') has users listed then only those
> users can su to ``root''.  It is not sufficient to change a user's
> /etc/passwd entry to add them to the ``wheel'' group; they must
> explicitly be listed in /etc/group.  If no one is in the ``wheel''
> group, it is ignored, and anyone who knows the root password is
> permitted to su to ``root''.

That's exactly relevant!
Thanks Matthias Kilian for this competent clarification!
I think the behaviour of adduser mentioned in this post
should be considered to be not quite self-evident or, to an 
average user: *buggy*!
Anyone think this should be posted to bugs@openbsd.org?


On Sat, 1 Jan 2005 4:17pm, Otto Moerbeek <otto@drijf.net> wrote:

> Once again, it is shown that careful reading is required. But, as it
> seems, all questions posted by the OP are answered by the man 
> pages su(1) and group(5).

Who's "OP"? If you're refering to me with "OP", no, not all questions
posted by me are answered by the man pages su(1) and group(5)!

I asked if this behaviour of adduser is a bug or not.
You basically told me that it's behaviour is "long standing behaviour",
not wheather it's a bug or not, - or rather you didn't even look into
it with the required depth - it seems now.

Greetings,
Mark