distcc prevents mounting due to wrong home directory

[nh2]

On distcc install, the user distccd gets / as home directory.
This prevents users from user-mounting mounts in the fstab:

mount /media/mymountpoint
/sbin/mount.davfs: / is the home directory of user distccd.
You can't mount into another users home directory

sudo usermod --home /dev/null distccd
does the trick.

Suggestion: Set the correct --home to /dev/null on install.

[Charlie_Smotherman (cjsmo)]

Cristian,

Could you please update your patch for karmic. I would suggest subscribing Ubuntu Universe sponsors after you have updated your patch

Best regards
Charlie Smotherman

[Cristian Klein (cristiklein)]

Hello,

I observe that the version of the package has not changed and that the patch should apply cleanly against it. Do you encounter any rejects?

[Julien Lavergne (gilir)]

The bug was reported also on Debian.

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

This seems a bit like a bug in mount (or whatever is enforcing the
policy). A homedir of / must be fairly common on unix machines, even
if it contravenes current Debian policy.

--
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>

[Taylor Braun-Jones (nocnokneo)]

Even if this exposes a bug in mount, there is clearly a problem with the distcc package as well which should be fixed. What is blocking this patch from being accepted?

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

On 13 July 2011 05:08, Taylor Braun-Jones <email address hidden> wrote:
> Even if this exposes a bug in mount, there is clearly a problem with the
> distcc package as well which should be fixed. What is blocking this
> patch from being accepted?

I couldn't find a description in (a brief scan of) debian-policy that
specifically describes what a daemon's home directory should be. I do
see that adduser --system says it will create a home directory using
the same rules as for normal users, and I see that most of the system
users on my natty box seem to have been set up that way.

So I'd be in favour of an updated patch that just deletes the --home
option altogether.

[Taylor Braun-Jones (nocnokneo)]

Sounds good to me. Here is an updated patch.

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

Almost; I think we should also omit --no-create-home.

[Taylor Braun-Jones (nocnokneo)]

Hm, I don't understand the rationale for omitting --no-create-home. I've never seen /home/... directories created for system users. For the system users that do need a home directory (of which distccd is not one), /var usually makes the most sense.

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

fair enough; the other daemons don't seem to be creating it either.

so +1 from me.

[Daniel Hartwig (wigs)]

It is not incorrect for distccd to have a home of "/". Affected users should upgrade to davfs2 (≥ 1.4.7-1) or use the option ignore_home, as documented in davfs2.conf(5).