vipw and bash login shell

Kurt Bigler kkb at breathsense.com
Fri Jan 16 23:29:18 PST 2009


on 1/16/09 11:16 AM, Daniel Howard <dannyman at toldme.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:16 PM, Kurt Bigler <kkb at breathsense.com> wrote:
> 
>> When I used vipw to change the login shell to /usr/local/bin/bash (which is
>> listed in /etc/shells, and was built from ports), subsequent ssh login
>> attempts fail (password rejected).  If I change the shell back to /bin/sh
>> or /bin/csh then login works again.
>> 
>> If I instead use webmin Users and Groups to set the login shell to bash (or
>> any other shell), everything is fine.

[snip]
 
> What happens if you change the shell via chsh?  What happens if you attempt
> to set a different shell, like /bin/tcsh?  Do you get the same result when
> you "log in" from within the shell using "login" or "su"?  What does the
> user's login line look like in /etc/master.passwd after either vipw or
> webmin?  Are you certain you aren't doing something silly with your editor
> like a line wrap or DOS newlines?

Apologies, I *was* doing something very silly.

In vipw, I didn't actually do what I described.  Instead I was inserting
"ba" before "sh" to make "bash".  But bash doesn't live in /bin, so I had
the wrong path as a result.  Webmin just gives me a multiple-choice popup,
and so I was unable to make the same mistake there.

Thanks for your response, which somehow helped me to focus and discover my
mistake.

-Kurt




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