[users-admin] Modifying user has no effect

Thanks for your report. Do you get the same problem if you run
sudo killall /usr/bin/perl; sudo /usr/share/system-tools-backends-2.0/scripts/SystemToolsBackends.pl -m UsersConfig
from console, and reproduce the procedure in users-admin without stopping the above command? Do you get the same problem when using a manual password?

If that not the case, please read the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingGnomeSystemTools, and follow the procedure for the tool users-admin.

Well, forget about my previous comment. Instructions and patch at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-system-tools/+bug/458883/comments/24 should fix the problem.

For me the lesson is: stop using perl, it is ugly and dangerous :-(

So does that fix your problem?
To packagers: I think this applies for a quick SRU - except if we wait for other fixes to publish at the same time, which can happen.

"Ugly" is mostly a matter of taste... ;-) perl in itself is not the cause of this bug. I think I'll make it more strict about variables declarations, and print more warnings. It's all about the coding style: developers should have used those restrictions from the beginning, and I should have been more careful, that's all. I don't believe it's worth rewriting all the backends in another language - except if you volunteer to do it!

my problem was not fixed by this patch:

I created the other users on my box at work some days before with gnome-system-tools after a fresh install of karmic-rc, but am not able to change passwords with the gui. I tried with random password and with typing a password two times by hand.

I had immediately success on the other side when using "sudo passwd <username>" like in old days.

I changed passwords and even rebooted without effect. Of course this actions should have effect immediately. After changing password i should be able to login as this other user with the newly set password.

the new title of this bug is IMO wrong, as i was able to set contact info of my other users. Only password setting seems to fail (so the old title was wrong too :-) )

PS: maybe the success of setting user info already is an effect of the applied patch, so the old title is correct for the situation after applying the patch and was not plain wrong before.

Thanks for the feedback. So if that doesn't work, could you follow the procedure I described in my first comment?

i will try, but in my impression when i look at "sub change_user" in Users.pm with geany, i have the impression as if there where actions concerning passwords explicitly programmed only for FreeBSD and SunOS.

i tried again with the following pasted and started in a terminal window and was still not able to change the password of the other user with an immediate effect.

fritz@jfh00:~$ sudo killall /usr/bin/perl; sudo /usr/share/system-tools-backends-2.0/scripts/SystemToolsBackends.pl -m UsersConfig

PS: the change had no effect at all.

Yeah, you're right, that's what I eventually found out too. I've removed that line when fixing something else in the latest release. I know it was risky to commit such changes in a stable release, but I'd have thought we'd have discovered it before. Next cycle we'll make development releases to avoid those failures. Thanks for noticing it!

This fully applies for a Stable Release Update, attached patch also fixes bug 468922, since both problems come from typos in the same function. Easy to review and really nice to have.

the patch mentioned in #11 inserts no line for password change it is the same as referred to in #2

Gosh, one mistake brings another... Here is the patch for the present bug.

Rationale for SRU:
- changing a user password fails with any user other than self, so this leaves Karmic without GUI to do that
- this fix merely brings back a line that should never have been removed since Jaunty, so there's basically no risk
- already applied upstream in the same form, should be available in 2.8.3

with patch in #13 AND the previous "@command vs. $command" patch system-tools-backends are now OK for me.

So we need to apply both of those, right?

http://git.gnome.org/cgit/system-tools-backends-clone/commit/?id=c9ee9b4fbc4e39767ae658ab2636aac2bc37944a
http://git.gnome.org/cgit/system-tools-backends-clone/commit/?id=e2a6668dcd5b4e85c0a5f7ea53198776617d2ef9

Chris volunteered to prepare an SRU for this, thanks!

Retitled to accomodate bug 468922 (now marked as a duplicate).

Martin: right, while the bugs are different, applying both patches at the same time makes sense.

Chris: Please also include a third patch that you will find at [1]. It will fix time/date setting, which was broken due to the same kind of mistake (which is why I should never ever have done that kind of change so late in the cycle!), a problem that was report as part of bug 475754. With those, the g-s-t should be good enough in Karmic.

1: http://git.gnome.org/cgit/system-tools-backends-clone/patch/?id=25f00b6ea6854602d988f2d387234ee370bf58e8

Thanks, I will prepare this in an hour or so

I'll have to finish this update tomorrow now, I got sidetracked debugging other issues this evening :(

fyi, you can add a user, but you can't delete it with users-admin. If you click on remove user it will always try to remove the same group and not the user. In terminel deluser or delgroup works well.

greehunter: Please have a look at bug 458883.

Here is a karmic debdiff.

It also includes the time-admin fix for bug 475754 (so that time/date settings can be changed again), but there are 2 issues documented in that bug report and this change only fixes one of them. It might be best to wait for the second fix before uploading this.

sponsored, thanks Chris!

Accepted system-tools-backends into karmic-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

Thanks Chris! When you say "there are 2 issues documented in that bug report", do you mean that the other issue that still needs to be fixed is the update delay problem in bug 475754? If so, don't worry, because 1) that's not really blocker, and I believe that's actually not a regression, and 2) that would go into the gnome-system-tools package, which would need a separate upload.

Milan - no worries. As bug 475754 is being used for this SRU, would you mind opening a new bug report for the delay problem so that the issue can be tracked separately?

Thanks

This bug was fixed in the package system-tools-backends - 2.8.2-1ubuntu1

---------------
system-tools-backends (2.8.2-1ubuntu1) karmic-proposed; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/10_unbreak_user_modification.patch,
    debian/patches/11_fix_password_change.patch:
    - Upstream changes from GIT to fix modifying passwords of
      existing users from users-admin (LP: #463353)
  * debian/patches/12_fix_date_setting.patch:
    - Upstream GIT change to make it possible to change the time and
      date settings from time-admin again (LP: #475754)
 -- Chris Coulson <email address hidden> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:09:00 +0000

Copied karmic-proposed to lucid.

I confirm that with the karmic-proposed version, modifying an user's password works fine.

I can verify that the fix works. I enabled the "karmic proposed" repo....and then ran "sudo apt-get install system-tools-backends". Changing user passwords now works in "Users and Groups". I am the image maintainer for Open1to1.org which develops and deploys an image for 1 to 1 netbooks and laptops to schools. In the creation of the newest image based on Karmic, one of our testers ran into this bug. I urge moving the fix ahead as quickly as possible as this really affects schools and system admins in school settings. Thanks for all you do!

This bug was fixed in the package system-tools-backends - 2.8.2-1ubuntu1

---------------
system-tools-backends (2.8.2-1ubuntu1) karmic-proposed; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/10_unbreak_user_modification.patch,
    debian/patches/11_fix_password_change.patch:
    - Upstream changes from GIT to fix modifying passwords of
      existing users from users-admin (LP: #463353)
  * debian/patches/12_fix_date_setting.patch:
    - Upstream GIT change to make it possible to change the time and
      date settings from time-admin again (LP: #475754)
 -- Chris Coulson <email address hidden> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:09:00 +0000

I just updated my Ubuntu 9.10, and I still can't change my own password with users-admin GUI, only with users-admin or the command "passwd" in terminal.
On users-admin, I tried changing my account's pass with and without clicking the "Allow changes" button. Both were unsuccessful.

Thales MG: If it's *your* password that you can't change, then the problem is not the really in the gnome-system-tools, since they start the "About Me" program to do that. Could you try to change your password using that program (from System->Preferences), and if that fails report a bug against that package? You can post the link here then. Thanks!

By using the System->Preferences->About Me, I can change my password. The problem I have, is if I try to change my own password by going thru System->Administration->Users and groups.
If I try to change it there, it says my password is changed. I try to authenticate it on the same window, it says my new password is correct. But when I do something that requires my password (like updating packages) it doesn't accept my new pass, only the old one.
Even if I reboot, the pass to login is still the old one.

Could you open a new report against the gnome-system-tools? I'd like to investigate this further.

You mean, report a new bug about gnome-system-tools? Ok.
By the way, I tried to change it again now, using users-admin, and it just keeps loading, and loading... Been a couple minutes or more now.