Issue #11111 has been updated by Steve Shipway.
I'm not able to replicate at will, and strangely it doesn't seem to affect ALL 'nonexistent' users. The 'steves' user that it incorrectly thinks exists used to exist once but was deleted (using the OS tools). Another nonexistent user doesnt produce this problem. Since puppet uses the OS calls to make its decistions, and this only seems to affect RHEL4 and RHEL5 (but not RHEL6), I'm willing to agree that it is not puppet's fault but the OS library's fault, though which function call is specifically used I'm not sure! Possibly there remains some vestige of the previously deleted user in a file somewhere but I wouldn't know where (passwd, shadow and group are all clear) ---------------------------------------- Bug #11111: Puppet incorrectly thinks user exists when it does not https://projects.puppetlabs.com/issues/11111 Author: Steve Shipway Status: Needs More Information Priority: Normal Assignee: Joshua Lifton Category: agent Target version: Affected Puppet version: 2.7.6 Keywords: Branch: I have a normal resource definition to ensure the user 'steves' does not exist. On one puppet client, even though the user definitely does not exist, puppet still tries to remove it giving this error: change from present to absent failed: Could not delete user steves: Execution of '/usr/sbin/userdel steves' returned 6: userdel: user steves does not exist user { steves: ensure=>absent; } Why is the puppet agent still trying to delete the user when it definitely is not there? I have checked /etc/shadow, /etc/passwd and /etc/group and it is not mentioned in any of them. This also affects another user, but not every one! I have a list of about six that are deleted if found on all hosts, but on this host only two of them result in this error. Puppet agent is running on Linux RHEL5 32bit. -- You have received this notification because you have either subscribed to it, or are involved in it. To change your notification preferences, please click here: http://projects.puppetlabs.com/my/account -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Puppet Bugs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/puppet-bugs?hl=en.
