bad owner on /var/empty: RH6.2 sparc 3.4p1

[Bob Van Cleef]

Well, back to 3.1p1.... 

Linux ns1 2.2.14-5.0 #1 Tue Mar 7 20:54:26 EST 2000 sparc unknown
------------------------------------------------------------------------
During the install of 3.4p1 I saw:

[snip]
./mkinstalldirs /var/empty
chmod 0700 /var/empty
[snip]
id sshd || \
        echo "WARNING: Privilege separation user \"sshd\" does not exist"
uid=9999(sshd) gid=9999(sshd) groups=9999(sshd)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
When attempting to run I see:

[root at ns1 openssh-3.4p1]# /usr/local/sbin/sshd -d
This platform does not support both privilege separation and compression
Compression disabled
debug1: sshd version OpenSSH_3.4p1
debug1: private host key: #0 type 0 RSA1
debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA
debug1: private host key: #1 type 1 RSA
debug1: read PEM private key done: type DSA
debug1: private host key: #2 type 2 DSA
Bad owner or mode for /var/empty
[root at ns1 openssh-3.4p1]# ls -l /usr/local/sbin/sshd
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       801476 Jun 26 11:36 
/usr/local/sbin/sshd
[root at ns1 openssh-3.4p1]# ls -lag /var/empty
total 5
drwx------    2 sshd     sshd         1024 Jun 25 16:13 .
drwxr-xr-x   19 root     root         1024 Jun 25 16:13 ..
-rw-r--r--    1 sshd     sshd           24 Jun 25 16:13 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r--    1 sshd     sshd          230 Jun 25 16:13 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r--    1 sshd     sshd          124 Jun 25 16:13 .bashrc
[root at ns1 openssh-3.4p1]#

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Built --with-pam, so:

[root at ns1 openssh-3.4p1]# cat /etc/pam.d/sshd
#%PAM-1.0
auth       required     /lib/security/pam_pwdb.so shadow nodelay
auth       required     /lib/security/pam_nologin.so
account    required     /lib/security/pam_pwdb.so
password   required     /lib/security/pam_cracklib.so
password   required     /lib/security/pam_pwdb.so shadow nullok use_authtok md5
session    required     /lib/security/pam_pwdb.so
session    required     /lib/security/pam_limits.so

[root at ns1 openssh-3.4p1]# grep ssh /etc/shadow /etc/passwd /etc/group
/etc/shadow:sshd:!!:11863:0:99999:7:::
/etc/passwd:sshd:x:9999:9999::/var/empty:/bin/bash
/etc/group:sshd:x:9999: