Public bug reported: I am using the command "su" quite often without any problems. The following "su" is just a senseless example, but it will demonstrate the problem quite well. In this example I want to make an echo as sshd user (could be any other user like www-data, rabbitmq, or others as well):
su sshd -s /bin/sh -c echo Doing this worked find, but beginning with Ubuntu 14.04, I get strange log entries in /var/log/auth.log like: May 10 14:21:18 abel su[22315]: Successful su for sshd by root May 10 14:21:18 abel su[22315]: + /dev/pts/2 root:sshd May 10 14:21:18 abel su[22315]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user sshd by root(uid=0) May 10 14:21:18 abel su[22315]: pam_systemd(su:session): Failed to create session: No such file or directory May 10 14:21:18 abel su[22315]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user sshd Especially the 4th line with "Failed to create session: No such file or directory" didn't appear on earlier system. With Ubuntu 13.10 it looked like this: May 10 14:22:30 davy su[18202]: Successful su for sshd by root May 10 14:22:30 davy su[18202]: + /dev/pts/1 root:sshd May 10 14:22:30 davy su[18202]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user sshd by root(uid=0) May 10 14:22:30 davy su[18202]: pam_unix(su:session): session closed for user sshd the /etc/passwd for user sshd is the same on 13.10 and 14.04: sshd:x:103:65534::/var/run/sshd:/usr/sbin/nologin Changing shell to /bin/false or /bin/sh or alike doesn't help. The problem is, that certain monitoring or security systems don't this entry and are complaining all the time. ** Affects: ejabberd (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1318168 Title: su: Failed to create session: No such file or directory To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ejabberd/+bug/1318168/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs