[KLUG Members] RE: RedHat 7.0/Bastille Linux passwd problem

[Bob Kanaley]

My password problem is fixed. It was a self-inflicted PAM problem (:<).

Last night, after a dish of my wife�s delicious rigatoni, the origin of the
passwd problem and the resolution thereof, became obvious.

Prior to adding the new users and discovering that I could not set
passwords, I had imported existing user accounts from a passwd file on an
old RedHat 5.2 box that never used shadow passwords.

To facilitate merging those accounts with the existing RedHat 7.0 accounts,
as root, I had run /usr/sbin/pwunconv. This deleted /etc/shadow. I combined
the two passwd files, sorted +2n -t:, eliminated duplicates, and saved.

When I then went to create new accounts, I was unable to set the passwords
because the passwd PAM setup apparently required that /etc/shadow exist.

I had planned to run /usr/sbin/pwconv to create the shadow file after adding
the new accounts. I just had my timing off a little.

I simply ran /usr/sbin/pwconv to create the shadow file and voila, I could
enter and change passwords for the new accounts with the passwd command.

Vive la rigatoni!!!

Bob

Robert V. Kanaley
Manager Information Systems
Agdia, Inc.
rvk@agdia.com
http://www.agdia.com