Username bug when installing 4.1-rc2

necker · November 29, 2021, 1:40am

I encountered a bug when installing Qubes 4.1-rc2.

During installation, I entered the username “sync”.

The installer accepted the username and after formatting the disk, the system rebooted. When I attempted to login to complete the installation, the system rejected the username & password.

I attempted the same install with the same username two more times with the same results. When I eventually changed the username during setup, Qubes installed properly.

The bug is identical to the 4.0 bug described here:

github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues

R4.0: User 'qubes' is allowed to be created during install but doesn't work.

opened 04:17PM - 02 Apr 18 UTC

closed 07:14PM - 03 Jul 18 UTC

btric-development

T: bug C: installer r4.0-dom0-stable

### Qubes OS version:  R4.0 ### Affected component(s): Installation --- ### Steps to reproduce the behavior:  1. Install Qubes with defaults, specify the name of user to be created as 'qubes'. 2. After first reboot, on Qubes OS option selection screen, selecting Done produces an error that a user is needed. 3. After second reboot, at Qubes Login dialog, user 'qubes' plus the password you chose earlier cannot login. ### Expected behavior: Probably the best behavior is to prevent a user account called 'qubes' from being created. If there are any other reserved words that should be avoided, they should be added to a blacklist and not allowed as the username of the first user you install with. ### Actual behavior: Unsure. It does not appear to create a user, yet it allows me to pass that part of installation. Believe that it does create the user but is then overwritten with an internal 'qubes' user. That makes sense but I selected qubes to be the install user because I then create additional users for access to the secure information stored in our Qubes laptop. ### General notes: Thank you for such a great piece of software. --- ### Related issues:

The only difference is the username itself. It’s not clear if the “qubes” username bug still exists, was fixed at a deeper level or was just patched to allow the username “qubes”.

Perhaps the fact that “sync” also causes the same behavior might help devs identify the underlying cause of the original problem.

unman · November 29, 2021, 1:06pm

It’s not the same - sync is a system account. like mail,
operator,games,ftp,dbus.
It has no shell associated with it - just /bin/sync - you can confirm
this by looking at /etc/passwd

I suppose there should be a note in the install instructions saying not
to use these accounts - since we inherit the installer from Fedora it’s
an upstream bug that you are allowed to use such usernames.

necker · November 29, 2021, 11:47pm

Interesting. Thanks for clarifying. I agree a note about invalid names would be helpful. It took me a few install attempts before I thought of changing the username.