[StarCluster] problem modifying starcluster AMI - ubuntu password change does not persist

[Dan Tenenbaum]

However, I just reproduced the problem in a few simpler steps:

- launched an instance of the sc ami ami-3393a45a (in the aws console)
- ssh'd to it, changed ubuntu's password to foobar
- verified that the change worked by doing 'su - ubuntu'
- created an image (again in the console) based on that instance
- started a new instance of the image from the last step
- ssh'd in as ubuntu
- 'su - ubuntu' with the password I set fails.

Dan


----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dan Tenenbaum" <dtenenba at fhcrc.org>
> To: "Rayson Ho" <raysonlogin at gmail.com>
> Cc: starcluster at mit.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 1:54:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [StarCluster] problem modifying starcluster AMI - ubuntu password change does not persist
> 
> Hi Rayson,
> 
> I went through a couple of iterations.
> 
> I started by using launching the SC AMI with the command documented
> at
> http://star.mit.edu/cluster/docs/latest/manual/create_new_ami.html
> ( starcluster start -o -s 1 -I <INSTANCE-TYPE> -m <BASE-AMI-ID>
> imagehost)
> 
> Then I added chef to the running instance (I did not change any
> passwords at this point).
> 
> Then I created a new image from that using the starcluster ebimage
> command, and used vagrant (with the aws plugin) and chef to
> provision an instance of that image according to my needs and to
> change ubuntu's password.
> 
> I'm wondering if there are startup daemons, or NFS, or something,
> that somehow resets the /etc/passwd file or explicitly resets
> ubuntu's password?
> 
> Thanks,
> Dan
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Rayson Ho" <raysonlogin at gmail.com>
> > To: "Dan Tenenbaum" <dtenenba at fhcrc.org>
> > Cc: starcluster at mit.edu
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 1:31:07 PM
> > Subject: Re: [StarCluster] problem modifying starcluster AMI -
> > ubuntu password change does not persist
> > 
> > 
> > What tools did you use to create the AMI? Did you use the web
> > console
> > or you use the StarCluster command?
> > 
> > 
> > If you use the SC ebsimage command, then did you change your
> > password
> > on the image host?
> > 
> > 
> > Rayson
> > 
> > ==================================================
> > Open Grid Scheduler - The Official Open Source Grid Engine
> > http://gridscheduler.sourceforge.net/
> > http://gridscheduler.sourceforge.net/GridEngine/GridEngineCloud.html
> > 
> > 
> > On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 3:17 PM, Dan Tenenbaum < dtenenba at fhcrc.org
> > >
> > wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > This might sound like an EC2 question that has nothing to do with
> > starcluster, and in fact I have asked it on some AWS forums
> > (there've been no answers). However, I have never encountered this
> > problem before until I started modifying a starcluster AMI, so I
> > wonder if it is related to what's on that AMI.
> > 
> > I made a custom AMI based on the starcluster AMI ami-3393a45a
> > (us-east-1 starcluster-base-ubuntu-13.04-x86_64 (EBS))).
> > 
> > I installed a bunch of additional software and I also set the
> > password of the ubuntu user to (let's say) 'foobar'.
> > 
> > The reason I did that is that I installed a web app that uses unix
> > usernames and passwords for authentication. So I needed the ubuntu
> > user to have a known password.
> > 
> > I then made a new image based on my running instance. Then I
> > started
> > a new instance from that image.
> > I ssh'd to that instance as the ubuntu user and typed 'passwd'. I
> > was
> > prompted for my existing password and entered 'foobar'. I then got:
> > 
> > passwd: Authentication token manipulation error
> > passwd: password unchanged
> > 
> > This tells me that the password for ubuntu is not 'foobar'.
> > 
> > Another way to test this is to try 'su - ubuntu'. This prompts for
> > the password, I enter 'foobar' and it says "su: Authentication
> > failure".
> > 
> > So...in a nutshell, when I change the ubuntu password, this change
> > does not survive the process of creating a new AMI.
> > 
> > Could this be due to the way the starcluster AMI is configured? Is
> > there some script that runs when it boots that re-sets that
> > password? I'm not passing any user-data when I start the
> > instance.....(I also tried a crontab @reboot job that changes the
> > password and that didn't work either....so maybe whatever is
> > messing
> > me up is happening after that job is run).
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Dan
> > _______________________________________________
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> > 
> > 
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