csh is not installed yet it is listed in /etc/shells

[Patrick L Archibald]

Binary package hint: csh

Shell csh is not installed but it is listed in /etc/shells. Contents of my /etc/shells file listed below:

# /etc/shells: valid login shells
/bin/csh
/bin/sh
/usr/bin/es
/usr/bin/ksh
/bin/ksh
/usr/bin/rc
/usr/bin/tcsh
/bin/tcsh
/usr/bin/esh
/bin/dash
/bin/bash
/bin/rbash
/usr/bin/screen

I discovered this bug while installing Sun Ray Server Software 4.2. A script looks for an alternate shell and attempts to use /bin/csh which does not exists. This occurs in Karmic 9.10 AMD64 desktop and server editions.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Dec 13 09:57:58 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: csh (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-16.53-generic
SourcePackage: csh
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-16-generic x86_64

[Ralph Corderoy (ralph-inputplus)]

On 8.04 and 10.04 package csh correctly adds itself and removes itself from /etc/shells on package installation and removal. That would suggest on your machine either /etc/shells came with /bin/csh listed on Ubuntu's installation, or the csh package was installed and removed a long time ago when it perhaps didn't remove itself from /etc/shells.