(Kali) Can't create GVM user, throws an error "Failed to create user: Invalid characters in user name"

Linux Distribution and External Repo Discussion
39

The warning is raised in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/greenbone/gvmd/v21.4.5/src/manage_sql.c line 51281 because the validate_username function two lines before fails.

The validate_username function can be founde at https://github.com/greenbone/gvmd/blob/v21.4.5/src/manage.c#L6179 which actually only calls a glib regexp function.

validate_username (const gchar * name)
{
  if (g_regex_match_simple ("^[[:alnum:]-_.]+$", name, 0, 0))
    return 0;
  else
    return 1;
}

that’s it. If somebody finds a culprit here I am happy to fix it.

4 Likes
40

One additional thing to check could be also using a standard bash shell and a standard terminal:

AFAICT Kali used a highly customized ZSH shell with additional modifications etc., this could also send wrong data (e.g. some additional chars not matching that regex) or similar which could cause this issue.

The same happen on a standard Debian testing with bash so this seems to be not the case.

I’m not able to put any more work / time into triaging which updated package is causing this but if a community member wants to go down the rabbit hole maybe try to install Kali Linux 2022.2 and then update every package from 2022.3 step-wise to determine which updated package had caused this problem.

2 Likes
41

really now?
Can we have an official response from KALI LINUX Support Team?

42

@Panos,

No, they need time to investigate, while also handling multiple other things related to maintaining a distribution. They have received bug report(s), but repeated pinging or asking for status updates or responses (here or Kali directly) will not help the situation or speed up the resolution. Thank you for understanding.

1 Like
43

Thank you for your response as well; an estimated fix time would certainly help though…

44

A quick general note:

If you have reported on the Kali Bug Tracker (or planning to) please keep it technical and related to facts on the software and that specific issue only. A bug tracker is generally different than a forum or a general support channel (and has a different style of conversation). Here are some hints from Kali on how you can make your bug report useful for them:

In turn, when you submit a bug, or follow up to an existing bug report, they may need more information from you or request your help in testing proposed solutions (many times that’s not needed, but it’s good to be prepared for that case).

Also, Kali is volunteer-driven and developed, which is important to keep in mind when reporting issues. :slight_smile:

Thanks!

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45

Bjorn, you were right on the spot! The Kali team confirmed the issue in glib =)))

""I confirm the issue. It seems to be caused by the package libglib2.0-0 version 2.73.3-3. If I re-installed the previous version 2.72.3-1, it fixes the issue. To re-install the old version is not a valid fix (it removes several packages depending on the latest version and it may create other issues). I will work on a real fix.""
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46

Update: it’s been acknowledged and reproduced by the package maintainer in the Kali Team. From this point they are fully in the lead. But typically there are a couple of paths to resolution (I can’t speak for this specific instance yet):

they are able to fix it on their end - or -
they have to contact additional projects for further information/investigation
(sometimes it’s both cases)

There is probably no ETA until they say there is one, and in the meantime what we can do is follow any recommendations they have and be available if they have followup questions. Thanks! :slight_smile:

Reference: 0007926: Unable to log in to greenbone after full upgrade and reboot - Kali Linux Bug Tracker

2 Likes
47

And always please be patient and respectful with the maintainers. They are doing the maintenance for free for you. If you don’t have a service level agreement with someone they don’t owe you anything. This things are hard to tackle and may happen every time.

So after this gets fixed please leave them a a big thank you message in the bug tracker!

5 Likes
48

A bug report about this issue created for the glib project / team is now available here:

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49

OMG! I’ve been battling this too all week! My update failed, so I started over. Fresh new Kali server, fresh new GVM, and no user possible. Thanks all for proving I’m not nuts!
(guess i didn’t need to rebuild those last three servers trying to find out what I did wrong)
I will try to monitor DeeAnn’s latest link to 0007926.

50
51

Some additional recent info (IIUC so no guarantee for correctness/completeness):

  • GLib seems to have recently switched from PCRE to PCRE2 (in GLib version 2.73.2/2.73.3, see replace pcre1 with pcre2 (!2529) · Merge requests · GNOME / GLib · GitLab)
  • At least one previously PCRE compatible regex used in gvmd (for the user name validation functionality) is now not compatible with the newly introduced PCRE2 functionality
  • For the Greenbone Community Edition currently only the latest Debian stable version (currently: 11) is AFAIK supported which doesn’t ship this newer GLib version and thus seems to be not affected

What i have seen so far is:

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52

All hail to the guys @ Kali, they figured things out really quickly! Now GVM works again.
Big thanks to this community as well, really great people here.

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53

CONGRATS to all participants of the solution!

54

Cannot add anymore replies for some reason so deleted one of my old ones… confirmed it also now works for me as well! Great job on doing it so quick.

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56

Thank you all who reported this here and on the Kali Bug Tracker for the help with getting this resolved :grinning: and thank you Sophie Brun for the super fast work in getting a patch ready and implemented :tada:

We’ve made a short announcement here: Attn: Kali Linux users (September 22 2022) as a quick summary and catch-up for anyone running into this for the first time.

1 Like
57

@chinno53 can you try to make a test post here at Community Discussion and Feedback - Greenbone Community Forum ?

If it doesn’t work you can DM me, and if that also doesn’t work please update your post again to let me know. Thanks!

1 Like
58

A post was split to a new topic: OpenVAS 21.4 on Xubuntu 22.10