Actually, it seems to me that the following fix resolves the issue. shadow (1:4.1.5.1-1.1ubuntu4) vivid; urgency=medium
* debian/patches/1020_fix_user_busy_errors: - libmisc/user_busy.c: Call sub_uid_close in all error cases, otherwise code that later opens it as RW fails obscurely. (LP: #1436937) -- William Grant <wgr...@ubuntu.com> Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:41:47 +0100 (vivid-amd64)root@impulse:/home/bdmurray# apt-get install passwd Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be upgraded: passwd 1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 60 not upgraded. Need to get 760 kB of archives. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid-proposed/main passwd amd64 1:4.1.5.1-1.1ubuntu4 [760 kB] Fetched 760 kB in 6s (117 kB/s) (Reading database ... 14236 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../passwd_1%3a4.1.5.1-1.1ubuntu4_amd64.deb ... Unpacking passwd (1:4.1.5.1-1.1ubuntu4) over (1:4.1.5.1-1.1ubuntu3) ... (vivid-amd64)root@impulse:/home/bdmurray# su test (vivid-amd64)test@impulse:/home/bdmurray$ sudo userdel -rf test sudo: unable to resolve host impulse userdel: user test is currently used by process 32256 userdel: test mail spool (/var/mail/test) not found (vivid-amd64)test@impulse:/home/bdmurray$ exit su: User not known to the underlying authentication module (vivid-amd64)root@impulse:/home/bdmurray# su test No passwd entry for user 'test' ** Changed in: shadow (Ubuntu) Status: Invalid => Triaged -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to shadow in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1342875 Title: Unable to delete currently logged in user Status in shadow package in Ubuntu: Triaged Status in shadow source package in Trusty: Won't Fix Status in shadow source package in Utopic: Won't Fix Bug description: A user can not delete themselves using the command 'sudo userdel -rf <username>', this is common in cloud tools that clean up running images prior to capture. A quick test shows that this worked from Precise (didn't look back further) to Raring and stopped working with Saucy. Here's a quick example of the failure (from trusty): # sudo adduser test # sudo usermod -aG sudo test ## As the 'test' user # sudo userdel -rf test userdel: user test is currently used by process 9600 userdel: cannot open /etc/subuid ## User is not removed Previously (output from precise) # sudo userdel -rf test userdel: user test is currently logged in userdel: warning: can't remove /var/mail/test: No such file or directory ## User is removed This is being run as the last command by tools that remove the 'ubuntu' user to clean the image prior to capture. This had previously worked and it is preferable that this could be made to work again. The alternative is removal by root, but the root user on cloud images is locked down and we would not want the user to enable root to run userdel on the risk of it not getting disabled properly prior to image capture. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/shadow/+bug/1342875/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp