Logcheck devel - Jun 2009 - Bug#532719: logcheck-database: filter pam_env complaining about missing /etc/default/locale

Package: logcheck-database
Version: 1.2.69
Severity: normal

on systems without configured global locale, i get lines like this in
the logcheck filtered logs:

Jun 10 21:12:13 ... sshd[9729]: pam_env(sshd:setcred): Unable to open env file:
/etc/default/locale: No such file or directory

this looks like a warning that is perfectly ok but does not do any harm
and occurs because when no global locale is set, /etc/default/locale is
not even created.  (nb: if /etc/default/locale once exists on a system
and dpkg-reconfigure is used to set no locale at all, the file will
contain a commented out line, so when trying to reproduce this you
should first purge and reinstall the locales)

if filtering this is against logcheck's habits (eg because the message
should not occur in the first place), please reassign to the complaining
program (libpam-modules, i guess, for complaining about a file missing
that can legally be absent) or locales (for not creating a file other
packages rely on)
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On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 12:19:38AM +0200, chrysn wrote:
> this looks like a warning that is perfectly ok but does not do any harm
> and occurs because when no global locale is set, /etc/default/locale is
> not even created.
That was fixed in #515099.
> program (libpam-modules, i guess, for complaining about a file missing
> that can legally be absent) or locales (for not creating a file other
> packages rely on)
The existence of /etc/default/locale is not guaranteed, as locales is
not an essential package.

I don't think any package can readily be blamed for this.  pam_env is
rightfully complaining about being unable to read a file that was
explicitly requested.  And while login/ssh/etc. will support
/etc/default/locale, they'll never pull locales as a dependency.

So, unless pam_env grows a envfile_optional option, or someone comes up
with some wicked magic to edit /etc/pam.d/* in the presence/absence of
locales, I think we'll have to filter out this message.


-- 
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            That's what we do.