After PAM scripted authentication we get admin:1661 - 'str' object has no attribute 'os_startIndex' error

[langhorn]

Hi

We have just switched from native Splunk authentication to PAM scripted authentication.
We are running Splunk 6.3.4 under Linux Suse, sles 11.

After switching to PAM scripted authentication the administrator can no longer see the list of users in the GUI (under Settings/Access Controls/Users).
Instead we get an error page and we can see internal error is related to
"admin:1661 - 'str' object has no attribute 'os_startIndex'"
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/opt/splunk/lib/python2.7/site-packages/splunk/appserver/mrsparkle/controllers/admin.py", line 1656, in listEntities pwnrList = en.getEntities("authentication/users", count=250, search="roles=*") File "/opt/splunk/lib/python2.7/site-packages/splunk/entity.py", line 131, in getEntities

It seems to indicate a limit of 250 users but we do not have anything like 250 users in the system, which seems to be a (arbitrary) limit set in admin.py. We have tried to increase the count but it did no help.

The PAM authentication is actually working but it is a major problem not to be able to see the list of users or to delete the old native user ids in the GUI.

We tried to switch back to native authentication and there is no problem displaying the old users again.

Thanks for any suggestions to resolve this issue.

[langhorn · Accepted solution]

Well, found the answer myself in the end.
It turned out to be a problem in /etc/passwd, where a user had a strange character in the description field.