Unable to change password

Chris Foote chris at inetd.com.au
Tue Dec 12 11:20:07 CST 2006


On Tue, 12 Dec 2006, Andrew Hill wrote:

> On Tue, 2006-12-12 at 11:57 +1030, shaun etherton wrote:
>> Andrew Hill wrote:
>>> Well, I'm stumped. I've got a machine that I can't seem to change the
>>> root password on:
>>>
>>> Any ideas where I should start to look?
>
>> man chattr(1) maybe?
>> lsattr on /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow.
>
> [root at staff etc]# lsattr passwd
> ------------- passwd
> [root at staff etc]# lsattr shadow
> ------------- shadow
>
> :-(

You might get some more clues by doing an strace:

 	# make sure your root password isn't readable by just anyone
 	touch strace.out ; chmod 600 strace.out
 	strace -o strace.out /usr/bin/passwd

 	less strace.out

(see `man strace` for diagnosing output if you're not familiar with
strace)

Cheers,

--
Chris Foote <chris at inetd.com.au>
Inetd Pty Ltd T/A HostExpress
Web:   http://www.hostexpress.com.au
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Phone: (08) 8410 4566


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