Bug#328090: ssh: Fail to install non-interactively as part of the ltsp install

[Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>]

Package: ssh
Version: 3.8.1p1-8.sarge.4
Severity: important

When trying to install an LTSP client chroot based on etch, I get this
error while setting up ssh:

  Setting up ssh (3.8.1p1-8.sarge.4) ...
  Creating SSH2 RSA key; this may take some time ...
  Creating SSH2 DSA key; this may take some time ...
  chage: can't open shadow password fileadduser: `/usr/bin/chage -M 99999 sshd' returned error code 1.  Aborting.
  Cleaning up.
  Removing user `sshd'.
  dpkg: error processing ssh (--configure):
   subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1

This block the installation of an LTSP client based on etch.

I suspect this is because of non-interactive installation, but am not
sure.  Trying to run 'apt-get install -f' interactively in the chroot
after the installation failed did not solve the issue.

The chroot was set up without shadow passwords (no /etc/shadow).
Could this be the problem?

Any ideas how to fix this?