GDM doesn't allow login if password contains "é" character

[Pedro Menezes]

Binary package hint: gdm

If an account is defined with a password containing a "é" character:

- Login on a terminal -> Works
- Access through samba -> Works
- Access through SSH -> Works
- Login through GDM -> FAILS

It fails as if the password was entered incorrectly.
It also maybe the case with other character (è,à, etc...)

Also if you have a password without this character and you add it at the end of the password entry field (so it will be a wrong password entered):

- Login on a terminal -> Fails
- Access through samba -> Fails
- Access through SSH -> Fails
- Login through GDM -> WORKS

So it looks like GDM has having issues processing the "é" character (or skipping it all together).

I've seen a post about something very similar to this but it was deemed as not a GDM bug but rather a PAM bug:
https://launchpad.net/products/gdm/+bug/41923

But I don't think that it is a PAM bug because at least one of the other methods (terminal login, samba access, SSH access) should also have this issue if the problem was with PAM.

I'm using Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper) x86_64.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug. What locale do you use?

[Pedro Menezes (pedro-menezes)]

I'm in Belgium but I prefer to handle OSes in English, thus:

pedro@lilith:~$ env | grep LANG
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_BE:en
pedro@lilith:~$

So, LANG is English but the locale is Belgian (English).

Unlike the duplicated bug, this is not 6.10 or Feisty Fawn, but rather Dapper Security (6.06.1 LTS) in x86_64, but probably the package is pretty similar if not the same across these diferent Ubuntu's...

Thanks for the reply and have a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year :)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Might be a pam problem

[Louis Opter (louis-opter)]

I have exactly the same problem with the § character.

I use Edgy Eft :

kalessin@kalessin:~$ env | grep LANG
LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
kalessin@kalessin:~$

[Howard Thomson (howard-thomson)]

For Kubuntu 7.04 beta, downloaded on 31-March-2007, new installation, login after install with a password with initial letter '#' fails.

Failed login from the desktop
Failed login from tty1/console

Frustrating !

[Pedro Menezes (pedro-menezes)]

One additional note to Howard Thomson:
- I believe this is yet another character-in-password problem (unfortunately seems that *ubuntu has quite a few of them whatever version or flavor) and not the GDM referred here.

I noticed this because in an attempt to secure some passwords we used a random password generator and one of the password had the '#' char.

The login and password worked fine through a SSH session (by direct SSH login and by doing SU from another user on SSH), also worked with a GDM login, BUT when using the console login it failed !!!

After troubleshooting it a bit (by typing the login in the username prompt :)) I noticed that on the console (tty1 to tty6) the '#' actually works as a backspace, so it actually deletes the previous character.

To sum it up. Char '#' on password (or username for that matter)
SSH -> Works
GDM -> Works
Terminal (console) -> Doesn't work (works as backspace)

As such I believe that this another problem altogether, and in a different package, so I would appreciate if you report it (possibly getty/mgetty or something deeper).

[Howard Thomson (howard-thomson)]

My password typed in during the install was not recognized when logging in to the system after completed installation.

I presumed that the installation request for the new password string had failed to pass the string unaltered to the passwd program, or its equivalent.

I recovered the install by booting from the live-cd, mounting the root f/s, removing the password field from /etc/shadow, running /bin/passwd to assign my password, and then rebooting and successfully logging in to both tty1/console and the KDM/X console.

Due to the seeding process in generating a new encrypted password, it is not possible to check what the string might be that the install process actually encrypted as the initial password stored in /etc/shadow, at least not without providing a custom /bin/passwd in the install packages.

I checked 'stty -a' on tty1, and the '#' character is not used as an edit character.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

This is working for me with Gutsy, may someone else confirm?

[Basilio Kublik (sourcercito)]

I can confirm this work fine in gutsy too.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks, marking it as fixed then feel free to re open it if you can reproduce this bug with a Gutsy installation, thanks in advance.

[Michał Faflik (faflu)]

That's great that it has been fixed in Gutsy, but I have similar "problem" with letter "ł" (polish) in 6.06 which is supposed to be LTS, so why don't you fix it in Dapper?