Cryptic error from sudo when /usr/sbin/sendmail doesn't exist

[Martin Stjernholm]

Binary package hint: sudo

I have set up a 32 bit chroot environment on my 64 bit system using schroot. In this environment I have a problem using sudo:

  kolon:~/doc> schroot
  I: [chroot-32 chroot] Running login shell: ‘/bin/tcsh’
  kolon[i686]:~/doc> sudo ls
  [sudo] password for mast:
  Broken pipe
  kolon[i686]:~/doc> sudo ls
  Broken pipe

All I get from sudo from this point on is this "Broken pipe" error. As can be seen above, sudo manage to ask for and verify my password (if I type in the wrong password, sudo correctly asks again), the problem occur later.

I suspect this is due to a mistake I've made in setting up this 32 bit chroot environment. I use a lot of bind mounts to share as much as possible between the chroot environment and my real 64 bit environment:

/dev /chroot-32/dev none bind 0 0
/etc/apt /chroot-32/etc/apt none bind 0 0
/etc/group /chroot-32/etc/group none bind 0 0
/etc/gshadow /chroot-32/etc/gshadow none bind 0 0
/etc/passwd /chroot-32/etc/passwd none bind 0 0
/etc/resolv.conf /chroot-32/etc/resolv.conf none bind 0 0
/etc/shadow /chroot-32/etc/shadow none bind 0 0
/home /chroot-32/home none bind,rshared 0 0
/proc /chroot-32/proc none bind 0 0
/sys /chroot-32/sys none bind 0 0
/tmp /chroot-32/tmp none bind 0 0
/var/run /chroot-32/var/run none bind 0 0
/var/tmp /chroot-32/var/tmp none bind 0 0

Note that the bug here might not be that the error happens, but rather that it's reported with a bad error message that doesn't give me any hint about what to look for.

sudo version is 1.6.8p12-5ubuntu2

Thanks.

[Martin Stjernholm (msub)]

strace'ing the problem revealed the reason for the cryptic error:

# strace -u mast sudo ls
/.../
pipe([4, 5]) = 0
clone(child_stack=0, flags=CLONE_CHILD_CLEARTID|CLONE_CHILD_SETTID|SIGCHLD, child_tidptr=0x2b34bf991b80) = 15504
close(4) = 0
fcntl(5, F_GETFL) = 0x1 (flags O_WRONLY)
fstat(5, {st_mode=S_IFIFO|0600, st_size=0, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x2b34bf029000
lseek(5, 0, SEEK_CUR) = -1 ESPIPE (Illegal seek)
stat("/etc/localtime", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=1892, ...}) = 0
stat("/etc/localtime", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=1892, ...}) = 0
stat("/etc/localtime", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=1892, ...}) = 0
write(5, "To: root\nFrom: mast\nSubject: ***"..., 176) = -1 EPIPE (Broken pipe)
--- SIGPIPE (Broken pipe) @ 0 (0) ---
+++ killed by SIGPIPE +++

One can see here that the broken pipe comes from trying to pipe a mail to a subprocess. Tracing that one too reveals:

dup2(4, 0) = 0
close(4) = 0
close(5) = 0
close(3) = 0
setgid(1021) = 0
setreuid(1021, 1021) = 0
execve("/usr/sbin/sendmail", ["/usr/sbin/sendmail", "-t"], [/* 4 vars */]) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
exit_group(127) = ?

I.e. /usr/sbin/sendmail doesn't exist. (The error that sudo tried to mail was that my user didn't exist in /etc/sudoers.)

Note that this has nothing to do with the chroot environment as I suspected, but rather that sudo doesn't gracefully handle the case when /usr/sbin/sendmail doesn't exist. I was able to reproduce the same problem outside the chroot.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I tried it under similar conditions: dapper chroot, my user not in sudoers, but I have a password in /etc/shadow, so that PAM can actually authenticate me. I just get

  $ sudo ls
  Password:
  martin is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.

without a "Broken pipe" error message, but I understand that this is subject to a race condition. My strace -f output also contains similar output, and a quick inspection of logging.c, send_mail() shows that this hasn't been fixed in Hardy yet.

[Neal McBurnett (nealmcb)]

See also https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sudo/+bug/32906
Is this now fixed in hardy-proposed for you?