user(add).chshell not available on Debian Buster

ghost commented 3 years ago

(I was sent here by The Docs.)

Description of Issue

I'm on Debian Buster/10. Trying to change a user's default shell (in this case to zsh) with user.chsell or useradd.chshell fails:

     ...
     Comment: State 'user.chshell' was not found in SLS 'zsh'
              Reason: 'user.chshell' is not available.
     ...

Setup

I'm using salt to manage my dotfiles config, so I'm running masterless. The minion file looks like this:

file_roots:
  base:
    - ./
file_client: local

...

There is a state 'zsh' which is applied to all targets.

The user is stored in the pillar and is successfully accessed in other states with pillar['user']. I want to set the user's default shell to zsh, which is installed by another state. which zsh gives me /usr/bin/zsh.

I have my pillar data in pillar/pillar.sls, so my deployment command is:

sudo salt-call --config-dir=./ --pillar-root=./pillar state.apply

Steps to Reproduce Issue

zsh/init.sls includes the following state:

zsh-default-shell:
  user.chshell:
    - name: {{ pillar['user'] }}
    - shell: /usr/bin/zsh

On running the above deployment command I get all states succeed except zsh-default-shell:

...
----------
          ID: zsh-default-shell
    Function: user.chshell
        Name: <user redacted>
      Result: False
     Comment: State 'user.chshell' was not found in SLS 'zsh'
              Reason: 'user.chshell' is not available.
     Changes:   
----------
...

I've tried removing as many variables as I can (e.g. removing the templating and hard-coding the user, or using useradd.chshell explicitly) and got the same error. This and the error report itself make it fairly clear that the problem is the useradd executable.

What's strange though is that sudo which useradd gives me /usr/sbin/usermod, and of course I can run usermod (even without specififying the path) as root or with sudo, and change things from the cli. So salt is failing to find something which is there (though it might be in the wrong place?).

Clearly, the desired behaviour is that salt finds usermod and sets the shell.

Versions Report

Salt Version: Salt: 3002.2

Dependency Versions: cffi: 1.14.3 cherrypy: Not Installed dateutil: 2.7.3 docker-py: Not Installed gitdb: 2.0.5 gitpython: 2.1.11 Jinja2: 2.11.2 libgit2: Not Installed M2Crypto: Not Installed Mako: 1.0.7 msgpack: 0.5.6 msgpack-pure: Not Installed mysql-python: Not Installed pycparser: 2.20 pycrypto: 2.6.1 pycryptodome: 3.6.1 pygit2: Not Installed Python: 3.7.3 (default, Jul 25 2020, 13:03:44) python-gnupg: Not Installed PyYAML: 3.13 PyZMQ: 17.1.2 smmap: 2.0.5 timelib: Not Installed Tornado: 4.5.3 ZMQ: 4.3.1

System Versions: dist: debian 10 buster locale: UTF-8 machine: x86_64 release: 4.19.0-13-amd64 system: Linux version: Debian GNU/Linux 10 buster

welcome[bot] commented 3 years ago

Hi there! Welcome to the Salt Community! Thank you for making your first contribution. We have a lengthy process for issues and PRs. Someone from the Core Team will follow up as soon as possible. In the meantime, here’s some information that may help as you continue your Salt journey. Please be sure to review our Code of Conduct. Also, check out some of our community resources including:

There are lots of ways to get involved in our community. Every month, there are around a dozen opportunities to meet with other contributors and the Salt Core team and collaborate in real time. The best way to keep track is by subscribing to the Salt Community Events Calendar. If you have additional questions, email us at core@saltstack.com. We’re glad you’ve joined our community and look forward to doing awesome things with you!

xeacott commented 3 years ago

Can confirm that this is an issue. Will have to dig a little deeper to see what the useradd module is missing.

ghost commented 3 years ago

For what it's worth, I solved the issue for myself by using user.present instead. This did work:

default-shell:
  user.present:
      - name: {{ pillar['user'] }}
          - shell: zsh

saltstack / salt