Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!gatech!destroyer!news.itd.umich.edu!stimpy.css.itd.umich.edu!pauls From: pauls@css.itd.umich.edu (Paul Southworth) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs Subject: Entertaining bug for your enjoyment Date: 16 Jun 1993 02:34:09 GMT Organization: University of Michigan ITD Consulting and Support Services Lines: 23 Distribution: world Message-ID: <1vm0r1$3su@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: stimpy.css.itd.umich.edu OK, so here's what made my evening so much fun: 1. I am connected via a telnet session. 2. I vipw and create a user account. No problem. 3. When I do that, I put "*" as the passwd as usual (yeah, just paranoid that someone might log in in the four seconds after I edit the passwd file before I set a passwd). 4. I do "passwd username" and it prompts me for the new passwd and I enter it. I hit return. .... <scratches head> I hit return again.... dead in the water. 5. I close connection. Ping from another machine works, and I can connect (ftp, telnet) but get no login prompt (inetd is unhappy). 6. Go to console, no strange messages, machine is hung, reboot via reset switch. Finds a minor inconsistency with fsck and reboots again. Machine comes up. 7. I go to do "passwd username" again -- no such user (?!) 8. I look at /etc/passwd -- it contains one whole piece of mail (??!!!!) between two random local users on the system, from several days ago. All passwd entries are gone, and there is no junk in the file. 9. All mail, and all user accounts, are on a separate partition. Go figure.