Debian bug report logs - #1667 chsh can change the login shell to anything Package: chfn ; Reported by: Marek Michalkiewicz ; 18 days old. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Message received at debian-bugs: From i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl!marekm Fri Oct 13 07:35:04 1995 Return-Path: Received: from pixar.com by mongo.pixar.com with smtp (Smail3.1.28.1 #15) id m0t3lCS-000DMWC; Fri, 13 Oct 95 07:35 PDT Received: from i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl by pixar.com with SMTP id AA05061 (5.67b/IDA-1.5 for debian-bugs-pipe@mongo.pixar.com); Fri, 13 Oct 1995 07:34:37 -0700 Received: (from marekm@localhost) by i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl (8.6.12/8.6.9) id PAA01745 for debian-bugs@pixar.com; Fri, 13 Oct 1995 15:34:43 +0100 From: Marek Michalkiewicz Message-Id: <199510131434.PAA01745@i17linuxb.ists.pwr.wroc.pl> Subject: chsh can change the login shell to anything To: debian-bugs@pixar.com Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 15:34:41 +0100 (MET) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1139 Package: chfn Version: 1.0-4 This is even documented in the man page, but I think this is wrong: for ordinary users, chsh should only change the shell to one of the valid shells listed in /etc/shells (and only if the shell actually exists and is executable), and only for users who have a valid and not restricted shell. The -l (--list-shells) option should only list the shells which are listed in /etc/shells AND executable by the user, otherwise it is the same as "cat /etc/shells". Believe me, on a system with 100 users or so, users who forget their passwords cause enough trouble. I don't want users to be able to screw up themselves so easily and then go to me to fix their login shell :-(. Typical example: user logs in over a modem (noisy phone line - this is quite common here in Poland, the maximum usable speed is often 300bps :-( ) and the new login shell has just one character wrong. They will notice the warning message, but after a while the modem drops the connection due to too much noise and the user can't log in again to fix the problem. There are good reasons for the traditional UN*X chsh behaviour... Marek ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Acknowledgement sent to Marek Michalkiewicz : New bug report received and forwarded. Full text available. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Report forwarded to debian-devel@pixar.com : Bug#1667 ; Package chfn . Full text available. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ian Jackson / iwj10@thor.cam.ac.uk , with the debian-bugs tracking mechanism This page last modified 07:43:01 GMT Wed 01 Nov