[Bug 1342875] Re: Unable to delete currently logged in user

[Ubuntu QA Website]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1342875

** Tags added: iso-testing

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Title:
  Unable to delete currently logged in user

Status in shadow package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in shadow source package in Trusty:
  Fix Released
Status in shadow source package in Utopic:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  [SRU justification]
  Regression from previous releases, this prevents cloud instance setup processes from removing the default admin account that's exists solely for the purpose of the setup itself.

  [Test case]
  1. Create a trusty schroot environment
  2. Log into the trusty schroot environment as a non-root admin user: schroot -c trusty
  3. Attempt to remove the admin account: sudo userdel -f vorlon (warning! do not use -r if your host system's home directory is mounted!)
  4. Observe the following error:
  userdel: user vorlon is currently used by process 5253
  userdel: cannot open /etc/subuid
  5. Upgrade to the passwd package from trusty-proposed
  6. Attempt to remove the admin account again
  7. Verify that the command has succeeded.

  [Regression potential]
  Minimal, as this is a targeted bugfix to the error handling for subuids.

  
  A user can not delete themselves using the command 'sudo userdel -rf <username>', this is common in cloud tools that clean up running images prior to capture.  A quick test shows that this worked from Precise (didn't look back further) to Raring and stopped working with Saucy.

  Here's a quick example of the failure (from trusty):
  # sudo adduser test
  # sudo usermod -aG sudo test
  ## As the 'test' user
  # sudo userdel -rf test
  userdel: user test is currently used by process 9600
  userdel: cannot open /etc/subuid
  ## User is not removed

  Previously (output from precise)
  # sudo userdel -rf test
  userdel: user test is currently logged in
  userdel: warning: can't remove /var/mail/test: No such file or directory
  ## User is removed

  This is being run as the last command by tools that remove the
  'ubuntu' user to clean the image prior to capture.  This had
  previously worked and it is preferable that this could be made to work
  again.  The alternative is removal by root, but the root user on cloud
  images is locked down and we would not want the user to enable root to
  run userdel on the risk of it not getting disabled properly prior to
  image capture.

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