User creation fails to copy /etc/skel ... usually.

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DejitaruJin
Posts: 4
Joined: 2018/01/31 15:18:27

User creation fails to copy /etc/skel ... usually.

Post by DejitaruJin » 2018/03/21 15:01:21

I've been flailing at an absolutely maddening, inconsistent bug, and I definitely need assistance. I'll just go ahead and show you:

Code: Select all

# ls -v /home/test*/
/home/test1/:

/home/test2/:

/home/test3/:
Desktop  Documents  Downloads  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos

/home/test4/:

/home/test5/:

/home/test6/:

/home/test7/:

/home/test8/:

/home/test9/:

/home/test10/:
Desktop

/home/test11/:

/home/test12/:

/home/test13/:

/home/test14/:

/home/test15/:

/home/test16/:

/home/test17/:
Desktop  Documents  Downloads  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos

/home/test18/:
Desktop

/home/test19/:

/home/test20/:
Desktop  Documents  Downloads  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos

/home/test21/:
Desktop  Documents  Downloads  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos

/home/test22/:
Desktop

/home/test23/:

/home/test24/:
Desktop

/home/test25/:

  • 25 local users created within the span of a few minutes, all using the exact same method (CentOS Users app) and same settings.
  • Populated home folders indicate a full, proper copy from /etc/skel.
  • Folders with only Desktop seem to be a half-assed attempt where it just gives up after that one folder.
  • Most of the time it just fails outright; on logging in, it's like a new machine, except not even with the basic CentOS user folders.
  • Full grep of /var/logs shows no reference to permissions or drive issues, nor reference to /etc/skel/ or /home/ that would be helpful or show a difference.
  • Occurs on all machines (a couple hundred of them), on and off the domain, with same frequency of success.
  • Statistically happens more with local user creation, but domain users sometimes have unpopulated home folders as well in the exact same manner.
  • Was working fine in mid February. Something in an update seems to be the cause.
  • Latest CentOS 7 with all updates as of Monday, fresh image otherwise.
The intermittent nature is what's really giving me a problem; at least a half dozen times I've thought I fixed it, but no, it just decided to work that time. I can not find any reference to this happening to anyone in the past, on any Linux distro, so I'm not expecting an immediate solution. But if someone can suggest where I might find additional logging mechanisms to better trace what's going wrong, I would appreciate it.

DejitaruJin
Posts: 4
Joined: 2018/01/31 15:18:27

Re: User creation fails to copy /etc/skel ... usually.

Post by DejitaruJin » 2018/03/29 14:40:00

In case anyone stumbles upon this in the future: In our case, someone in the company updated our BitDefender policy, and we've determined with complete certainty that this is the cause. We're still fighting with the issue, because they don't remember what they changed and even BD has no logs that it's doing anything, but it is not a CentOS/Linux problem in our case.

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