It must be related to the daily cron job that seam to make an error - E.g.
/etc/cron.daily/conf-mod_ssl:
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]:Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:Email Address []:
What this script does is to exec expand-template /home/e-smith/ssl.pem/pem
when I try to execute "sh conf-mod_ssl" it shows the same text and return me right to the prompt. When I write "expand-template /home/e-smith/ssl.pem/pem" directly at the command line is terminate the current session or start another - I am back to the login screen again!
This may help in debugging the situation!