Bug#1107744: libnss-ldapd,debian-edu-config: flaky autopkgtest for debian-edu-config: newly-created group cannot be resolved

Mike Gabriel <[email protected]> Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:51:49 +0000

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.skolelinux.devel
Organization	DAS-NETZWERKTEAM
Message-ID	<20250724155149.Horde.fExJDmLwdhthjM2lzRw6TXe__27485.2549935289$1753372414$gmane$org@mail.das-netzwerkteam.de>

Hi Simon,

On  Fr 13 Jun 2025 17:44:14 CEST, Simon McVittie wrote:

> The symptom of the failure is that sometimes, polkitd.postinst will
> successfully invoke systemd-sysusers to create the polkitd user and
> group in passwd(5) and group(5):
>
>> 173s Configurando polkitd (126-2) ...
>> 173s Creating group 'polkitd' with GID 989.
>> 173s Creating user 'polkitd' (User for polkitd) with UID 989 and GID 989.
>
> but then immediately after that, an operation that involves looking up
> the newly-created polkitd group will fail, instead of falling back to
> group(5) as it should:
>
>> 173s chown: invalid group: ‘root:polkitd’
>> 173s dpkg: erro processando pacote polkitd (--configure):
>> 173s  o subprocesso instalado pacote polkitd script  
>> post-installation retornou estado de saída de erro 1
>
> This is not specific to polkitd. Other postinsts also fail to look up a
> newly-created user:
>
>> 193s Configurando udev (257.6-1) ...
>> 193s Creating group 'input' with GID 993.
>> 193s Creating group 'sgx' with GID 992.
>> 193s Creating group 'kvm' with GID 991.
>> 193s Creating group 'render' with GID 990.
>> 193s /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/static-nodes-permissions.conf:18: Failed  
>> to resolve group 'kvm': No such process
>> 193s /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/static-nodes-permissions.conf:19: Failed  
>> to resolve group 'kvm': No such process
>> 193s /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/static-nodes-permissions.conf:20: Failed  
>> to resolve group 'kvm': No such process
>> 194s systemd-udevd.service is a disabled or a static unit, not starting it.
>
> The error message "No such process" indicates ESRCH, but that might be
> an error synthesized internally by systemd utility code to represent
> "the lookup failed" rather than specifically referring to a process not
> being found.

I have looked into this a bit close with help from elbrus to intercept  
a testbed after autopkgtest run.

Only thing I could spot is that /etc/nsswitch.conf refers to the  
systemd libnss plugin. This requires systemd-userdbd.service to be  
started which is not the case in the testbed it seems.

passwd:         files systemd
group:          files systemd
shadow:         files systemd
gshadow:        files systemd

Could a non-started systemd-userdbd be the cause of the problem?

Furthermore, the recommended setup is:

passwd:         files systemd
group:          files [SUCCESS=merge] systemd
shadow:         files systemd
gshadow:        files systemd

Greets,
Mike
-- 

mike gabriel aka sunweaver (Debian Developer)
mobile: +49 (1520) 1976 148
landline: +49 (4351) 486 14 27

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