Adding a pam task, pam_env does some sanity checking of the input (e.g. %=1 in /etc/default/locale gets ignored) so I don't see why an empty variable name should cause a total failure. But will fix the update- locale script too.
** Also affects: pam (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- 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/1892825 Title: update-locale not perform correctly sanity checks Status in glibc package in Ubuntu: In Progress Status in pam package in Ubuntu: New Bug description: By passing wrong input as following: sudo update-locale LANGUAGE = en_US.UTF-8 result is: ... #LANGUAGE=en = This "equal" sign that was added makes system completely unusable(can't run sudo anymore): bentzy@bentzy-nb:~$ sudo vim /etc/default/locale sudo: pam_open_session: Bad item passed to pam_*_item() sudo: policy plugin failed session initialization Fixed it booting from installation disk and fixing corrupted /etc/default/locale ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04 Package: locales 2.31-0ubuntu9 Uname: Linux 5.5.4-050504-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.6 Architecture: amd64 CasperMD5CheckResult: skip CurrentDesktop: KDE Date: Tue Aug 25 09:36:03 2020 InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-08-17 (7 days ago) InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200423) PackageArchitecture: all SourcePackage: glibc UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glibc/+bug/1892825/+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