This is in fact reproduceable. I had the same issue too, was difficult to debug (due to setuid-ness of the binary in question), but finally it turned out to be wrong permissions for /dev/full (local config error really) - it was 0660 instead of 0666, so unix_chkpwd was unable to open it when run from user, and complained.
So, we've quite several issues here. 1) some programs (xscreensaver is one) executes PAM stuff with (some) standard filedescriptors closed. Not that it's an issue by itself, but it MAY lead to some unexpected results like this one, and is somewhat unsafe too. 2) wrong logic in calling unix_chkpwd helper from pam_unix. This is a security issue and is a significant one. Failure to verify the password gets interpreted as success. How about running *almost* out of processes and calling some su(1) to expect unix_chkpwd to fail? 3) wrong logic in unix_chkpwd itself, it should not crash if it's unable to reopen its standard file descriptros. Oh well. I'd bot close this bug given the above. See also fedora bug report of the same nature -- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=488147 . ** Bug watch added: Red Hat Bugzilla #488147 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=488147 -- unix_chkpwd crashes on gnome-screensaver https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/270781 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
