incorrect info in /usr/share/doc/awstats/README.Debian.gz about logrotate

[Vincent Lefevre]

In the /usr/share/doc/awstats/README.Debian.gz file:

      if [ -x /usr/share/awstats/tools/update.sh ]; then
        su -l -c /usr/share/awstats/tools/update.sh www-data
      fi

However this "su" line gives the following error with Ubuntu 14.04:

This account is currently not available.

I suspect this is because the shell of www-data has automatically been changed from /bin/sh to /usr/sbin/nologin (according to /etc/passwd).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: awstats 7.2+dfsg-1
Uname: Linux 3.10.38-xenU-10-cc97a6b-x86_64 x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon May 19 00:15:58 2014
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: awstats
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-05-17 (1 days ago)
modified.conffile..etc.awstats.awstats.conf: [deleted]

[Marius Gedminas (mgedmin)]

BTW awstats 7.3 currently in Debian unstable uses 'su -l -c ... www-data' in http://sources.debian.net/src/awstats/7.3%2Bdfsg-1/debian/prerotate.sh/, which is installed as /etc/logrotate.d/httpd-prerotate/awstats.

Eventually that version will be synced into Ubuntu.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Willie (midspeck)]

Perhaps a valid fix is to change the su line to:
su -s /bin/sh -l -c /usr/share/awstats/tools/update.sh www-data

This would allow the shell to stay as /usr/sbin/nologin, but specifically override that just for the logrotate job.

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Hi,
Long dormant because for everyone it might be "just a Readme" never the less lets fix those as well.

In general I agree to Willies suggestion.
Yet given that there is no Delta I filed it with Debian and will link it here.

[Miriam España Acebal (mirespace)]

Hi,

doing some clearance I found this very old bug.

Trusty reached EOSS (End of Standard Support) so I'm afraid it can't be fixed. It is unfortunate that we were unable to resolve this defect, however, there appears to be no further action possible at this time because it's not a security bug.

I checked the bug reported to Debian by Christian here [1] and it is not marked as resolved, unfortunately. If you have new information related to it, we would be grateful if you could please add a comment there.

Also, checked that the line suggested by Willie is in /usr/share/doc/awstats/README.Debian.gz since Bionic at least.

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=858461

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

As Miriam indicates, this appears to have been addressed in the README via changing to the line Willie suggests in comment #4. I've also confirmed this change is in focal and jammy, so I think this can be closed as resolved now.