gnome-about-me hang when changing passwords with libpam-cracklib

[Jamie Strandboge]

Binary package hint: gnome-control-center

On Ubuntu 9.04 (confirmed to affect 8.10 too). Steps to reproduce:

1. install libpam-cracklib
2. log out and back in
3. go System/Preferences/About Me and bring up the password dialog
4. type in the correct password to authenticate and press enter
5. type in 'pass' into both fields, and click 'Change password' (it's too short)
6. type in 'password' into both fields, and click 'Change password'. Nothing appears to happen and 'Change password' is still clickable. Click it again.

gnome-about-me will now 'hang'. It might take other attempts, but at some point, an interaction between gnome-about-me and pam with cracklib installed causes hangs.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please try to obtain a backtrace following the instructions at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash and upload the backtrace (as an attachment) to the bug report. This will greatly help us in tracking down your problem.

[Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand)]

Attached is a backtrace with gnome-control-center-dbgsym and libpam-cracklib-dbgsym installed done on Jaunty.

[Eivind Eide (mokkurkalve)]

I can only confirm this, as I commented in another thread which I think was the wrong one, as it's for another distro.
Anyways, my experience are described in the end of this one:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/baltix/+source/gnome-control-center/+bug/151218

[Jamie Strandboge (jdstrand)]

Marking as confirmed as the requested information was provided and another user is experiencing the same problem.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Generally this kind of hang happens when 'passwd' answers something that about-me wasn't expecting. If you are seeing the very same problem as comments on bug 151218 describes, then we must catch the output
> it's based on a dictionary word

Could you check that it's your problem by running
LC_ALL=C passwd
and reproduce the problem described in the report?

I've sent a patch upstream to fix the first issue at least, so it should be fixed for Lucid.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-control-center - 1:2.29.90-0ubuntu1

---------------
gnome-control-center (1:2.29.90-0ubuntu1) lucid; urgency=low

  * New upstream version
    - About-me:
      + Fix hangs when 'passwd' outputs unexpected answers (lp: #338976)
      + Fix list of passwd error strings (lp: #498875)
      + Fix fingerprint name on 2nd page
    - At-properties:
      + Add AutostartCondition to gnome-at-session.desktop
    - Mouse:
      + Fix mnemonics conflicts on touchpad tab
  * Dropped patches merged upstream:
    - 02_gnome-at-session_autostart-condition.patch
  * Refreshed patches:
    - 99_autoreconf.patch
    - 99_ltmain_as-needed.patch
  * Disable 98_password_dialog_launcher.patch - this isn't currently used
    by users-admin
  * Drop 17_default_applications_firefox_3-5.patch - no need to rename the
    icon now with the unversioned Firefox package
 -- Chris Coulson <email address hidden> Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:22:18 +0000

[ghomem (gustavo)]

Trial patch that works with winbind + Active Directory auth available here:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=608234

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

ghomem: That's not the same bug, please file another report.