Adduser devel - Dec 2008 - Bug#508740: adduser: confusing message regarding format of group names

Package: adduser
Version: 3.102
Severity: minor

*** Please type your report below this line ***

I tried to do this:
# adduser --group --system fu_bar

and got this result:
addgroup: Please enter a username matching the regular expression configured
via the NAME_REGEX configuration variable.  Use the `--force-badname''
option to relax this check or reconfigure NAME_REGEX.
# echo $?
1


What this error message means, in translation, is
"I don''t like underscores in group names".
However it takes quite a bit of looking at it to "get" this meaning.
Is there some way to make this meaning clearer to the reader?

I looked at the adduser manpage and NAME_REGEX is not mentioned.
Nor is it a variable that appears in /etc/adduser.conf.
So I was at a loss about what to do here, to do things "properly".

I was able to work around by using the suggestion in the message:
# adduser --group --system --force-badname fu_bar
That worked fine.

I went and read the code and became more confused.
The config hash has the element ''name_regex'', not
''NAME_REGEX'',
but this is a minor confusion.
I also found that in subroutine ''checkname'', underscores
should be
allowed in group names:
   sub checkname {
     my ($name) = @_;
         if ($name !~ /^[_.A-Za-z0-9][-\@_.A-Za-z0-9]*\$?$/) {
             printf STDERR
 	    (gtx("%s: To avoid problems, the username should consist only of
 	    letters, digits, underscores, periods, at signs and dashes, and not start
with
 	    a dash (as defined by IEEE Std 1003.1-2001). For compatibility with Samba
 	    machine accounts \$ is also supported at the end of the username\n"),
$0);
             exit 1;
         }
   ...


So it looks like, on my system, the NAME_REGEX variable is not being 
defined?
I hacked the code to print all the keys & values in %config and found
that ''name_regex'' was set to
''^[a-z][-a-z0-9]*$''. I find where this
occurs.


I assume it should be defined in /etc/adduser.conf, is that correct?
If NAME_REGEX is defined, it appears to be inconsistent with the first 
check in subroutine ''checkname'' shown above.

When responding to this bug, could you please address:
  1. this apparent inconsistency between the code and the default
''name_regex''?
  2. mentioning NAME_REXEX in the manpage? I''ve attached a tentative
patch.

Thanks,
Vince

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
   APT prefers stable
   APT policy: (500, ''stable'')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.24-etchnhalf.1-686-bigmem
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages adduser depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]       1.5.11etch2  Debian configuration management sy
ii  passwd                      1:4.0.18.1-7 change and administer password and
ii  perl-base                   5.8.8-7etch5 The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

adduser recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
   adduser/homedir-permission: true


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Am 2008-12-15 08:48:50, schrieb Vincent McIntyre:
> What this error message means, in translation, is
> "I don''t like underscores in group names".
> However it takes quite a bit of looking at it to "get" this
meaning.
> Is there some way to make this meaning clearer to the reader?
> 
> I looked at the adduser manpage and NAME_REGEX is not mentioned.
> Nor is it a variable that appears in /etc/adduser.conf.
> So I was at a loss about what to do here, to do things
"properly".
    man 5 adduser.conf


Thanks, Greetings and nice Day/Evening
    Michelle Konzack
    Systemadministrator
    24V Electronic Engineer
    Tamay Dogan Network
    Debian GNU/Linux Consultant


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On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 08:48:50AM +1100, Vincent McIntyre
wrote:
> addgroup: Please enter a username matching the regular expression
configured
> via the NAME_REGEX configuration variable.  Use the
`--force-badname''
> option to relax this check or reconfigure NAME_REGEX.
NAME_REGEX is mentioned in the man page for adduser.conf, which is
referenced in the adduser man page.

I can offer to include NAME_REGEX into the default configuration file,
if that helps for people who cannot find the man page. Would that help?
> What this error message means, in translation, is
> "I don''t like underscores in group names".
> However it takes quite a bit of looking at it to "get" this
meaning.
> Is there some way to make this meaning clearer to the reader?
Not easily. I think there was a reason to avoid printing the actual
regex in the error message, but I don''t remember.

Greetings
Marc

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On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 09:44:11PM +1100, Marc Haber
wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 08:48:50AM +1100, Vincent McIntyre wrote:
> > addgroup: Please enter a username matching the regular expression
configured
> > via the NAME_REGEX configuration variable.  Use the
`--force-badname''
> > option to relax this check or reconfigure NAME_REGEX.
> 
> NAME_REGEX is mentioned in the man page for adduser.conf, which is
> referenced in the adduser man page.
> 
> I can offer to include NAME_REGEX into the default configuration file,
> if that helps for people who cannot find the man page. Would that help?
> 
I think it would. In fact this was done before I even reported the bug,
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/adduser/trunk/adduser.conf?r1=738&r2=744
Ah, the joy of running stable.

The relevant lines are there in my copy of /usr/share/adduser/adduser.conf,
and the postinst copies this to /etc/adduser.conf if the latter is missing.
So I think this bug can be closed.

I suspect that I did not see the regex in my copy of /etc/adduser.conf
because I had an old version, kept there across upgrades.

Looking at the manpage text again, it seems that I must not have made the
connection "configuration file" == "/etc/adduser.conf".
Which was lame of me.

The only change I can think of that would have avoided my confusion would be
more explicitly pointing to the manpage for the config file, eg

--- usr/share/man/man8/adduser.8.orig   2011-11-24 07:27:43.407629520 +1100
+++ usr/share/man/man8/adduser.8        2011-11-24 07:31:14.739404373 +1100
@@ -199,6 +199,8 @@
 and 
 .B addgroup
 to apply only a weak check for validity of the name.
+.B NAME_REGEX
+is described in adduser.conf(5).
 .TP
 .B \-\-gecos GECOS
 Set the gecos field for the new entry generated.


Thanks for your care of this package.

Kind regards,
Vince