Bug#356162: adduser: No error message if homedir cannot be created

[Ted Percival]

Title: adduser: No error message if homedir cannot be created

Package: adduser
Version: 3.85
Severity: normal

If creating the home directory fails there is no error message
indicating why.

# adduser --system --debug sshd
Selecting uid from range 100 to 999.
Adding system user `sshd' with uid 107...
Adding new user `sshd' (107) with group `nogroup'.
/usr/sbin/useradd -d /home/sshd -g nogroup -s /bin/false -u 107 sshd
/usr/bin/chage -M 99999 sshd
Creating home directory `/home/sshd'.
Cleaning up.
Removing directory `/home/sshd'
rm -rf /home/sshd
Removing user `sshd'.
userdel sshd
#

In this case /home is controlled by autofs:
# mkdir /home/sshd
mkdir: cannot create directory `/home/sshd': No such file or directory
# ls -ld /home
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 2006-03-10 12:19 /home

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.15-1-686-smp
Locale: LANG=en_AU.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages adduser depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.4.71     Debian configuration management sy
ii  passwd                        1:4.0.14-7 change and administer password and
ii  perl-base                     5.8.8-2    The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

adduser recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
  adduser/homedir-permission: true