Bug 248574

Summary: rmuser pw: pw_copy(): Invalid argument
Product: Base System Reporter: Aleks <Z462vasa>
Component: kernAssignee: freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status: Closed Feedback Timeout    
Severity: Affects Only Me CC: lwhsu
Priority: ---    
Version: 12.1-STABLE   
Hardware: Any   
OS: Any   

Description Aleks 2020-08-10 11:03:33 UTC 
rmuser vmail
Matching password entry:

vmail:*:1002:1005::0:0:User &:/var/spool/virtual:/sbin/nologin


Is this the entry you wish to remove? y
Remove user's home directory (/var/spool/virtual)? n
Removing user (vmail): passwdpw: entry inconsistent
pw: pw_copy(): Invalid argument

rmuser vmail
Matching password entry:

vmail:*:1002:1005::0:0:User &:/var/spool/virtual:/sbin/nologin

Is this the entry you wish to remove? y
Remove user's home directory (/var/spool/virtual)? y
Removing user (vmail): home passwdpw: entry inconsistent
pw: pw_copy(): Invalid argument
Comment 1 Conrad Meyer freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2020-08-11 19:16:19 UTC 
This indicates that the failing part of rmuser.sh is in rm_user():

182         ! verbose && echo -n " passwd"
183         verbose && echo -n " from the system:"
184         ${PWCMD} userdel -n $login $pw_rswitch

And the output of 'pw userdel -n vmail' (with or without additional -r) is:

pw: entry inconsistent
pw: pw_copy(): Invalid argument

Both the warning and EINVAL come from libutil's pw_copy(), while the err() termination comes via the pw_update() in pw(8).  The warning is produced if pw_equal() fails between the old_pw supplied to pw_copy() and the record of the same name parsed by pw_scan() out of /etc/master.passwd.  pw_equal looks at pw_name, pw_uid, pw_gid, pw_class, pw_change, pw_expire, pw_gecos, pw_dir, and pw_shell.

pw(8)'s old_pw comes from GETPWNAM(), which ... is PWF._getpwnam... which is just getpwnam(3) for non-relocated pw(8).  getpwnam(3) goes through nsdispatch and looks at /etc/pwd.db (or /etc/spwd.db) directly.

So it seems like your /etc/master.passwd is out of sync with your /etc/pwd.db.
Comment 2 Conrad Meyer freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2020-08-11 19:24:19 UTC 
If you have edited /etc/master.passwd by hand to add this user, that could cause this.

  /usr/sbin/pwd_mkdb -p -u vmail /etc/master.passwd

regenerates the database entries for this user, while

  /usr/sbin/pwd_mkdb -p /etc/master.passwd

regenerates the whole database from master.passwd.