Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but this appears to be a "regular" (non-security) bug. I have unmarked it as a security issue since this bug does not show evidence of allowing attackers to cross privilege boundaries nor directly cause loss of data/privacy. Please feel free to report any other bugs you may find.
** Information type changed from Public Security to Public -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to pam in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1822736 Title: Passwords longer than 255 characters break authentication Status in pam package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Bug description: DISCUSSION When a password longer than 255 characters is set for any user account, this user will become unable to authenticate when running 'sudo' or 'passwd'. IMPACT This affects 18.04.2 systems, whether they were installed using Desktop (ubiquity) or Server (subiquity) installers. It may also affect other releases - this is yet untested. Tagged 'security' since these utilities then deny service to this user. REPRODUCTION # Add user 'test' with password 'testtest' sudo adduser --gecos '' test # Add user 'test' to the 'sudo' group sudo adduser test sudo # Become user 'test' sudo -iu test # Verify user 'test' can run commands via sudo sudo whoami # Change password of 'test' to this 255 character long password: 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345 passwd # Verify user 'test' can run commands via sudo with the new password set sudo -k sudo whoami # should report "root" # Change password of 'test' to 'testtest': passwd # Verify user 'test' can run commands via sudo with the new password set sudo -k sudo whoami # should report "root" # Change password of 'test' to this 256 character long password: 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456 passwd # Verify user 'test' can run commands via sudo with the new password set sudo -k sudo whoami # should report "root" # This authentication fails, as sudo does not accept the 256 character password. # Attempting to change this password to a different value also fails: passwd # Effectively, user 'test' is now unable to use sudo, or to change their password. # The 'login' command, run by root, does, however, still enable user 'test' to login using the newly set 256 character password. # At the same time, a different restricted user who is a member of the 'sudo' group can still set a new password for 'test' (after authenticating to sudo with their own password) by supplying the current 256 character password using: sudo -u test passwd # Finally, to clean up sudo deluser --remove-home test ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS * A root-initiated 'login' command still allows this user to authenticate. * A different restricted user who is a member of the 'sudo' group can still set a new password for for this users' account (after authenticating to sudo with their own password) by supplying the >=256 character password CREDIT This was originally reported by 'Fieldy', I just reproduced it / filed this bug report. ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04 Package: libpam0g 1.1.8-3.6ubuntu2.18.04.1 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-16.17~18.04.1-generic 4.18.20 Uname: Linux 4.18.0-16-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.6 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME Date: Tue Apr 2 09:39:39 2019 SourcePackage: pam UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pam/+bug/1822736/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp