cannot change password after ssh login

rcmonroig · 12-02-2009, 03:14 PM

Running Fedora 10 server. ssh login over Internet. Verify users are complaining they canno change their account password after they login in. They need to be able to change their password as all users have the same initial password. Makes sense, right? Shell lets you go through the motions and then displays the following message:

passwd: Authentication service cannot retrieve authentication info

What does this message mean and how can I fix this? Thanks a bunch

-- Ron

Web31337 · 12-02-2009, 03:18 PM

is there something wrong with EOL in /etc/shadow? is /etc/shadow containing correct data? did you edit it manually?
i had same trouble time ago: i just googled for it(the error message) and found out i used wrong EOL in /etc/shado after i edited it myself.

chrism01 · 12-02-2009, 06:43 PM

Could also mean its using (or thinks its using) NIS or LDAP and can't contact the auth server.
Have a look at /etc/nsswitch.conf to check.

rcmonroig · 12-02-2009, 10:36 PM

Not to sure what you mean by EOL in the shadow file. The /etc/passwd points to the shadow file as it should. My users just can't change their own passwords using passwd command. Can you be more specific regarding your remedie? Thanks, Ron

rcmonroig · 12-02-2009, 10:39 PM

Hi Chris,
What would I need to check in the nisswitch.conf file and what I need to change to fix the problem?
Thanks,
Ron

chrism01 · 12-02-2009, 11:48 PM

Paste the contents of nsswitch.conf here.
Also, EOL = End-Of-Line; he's saying the shadow file recs might be corrupted.

rcmonroig · 12-04-2009, 12:29 PM

My thanks to everyone that helped me on this. I finally go the answer and figured out what needed to be done. The answer was to make the following changes in /etc/nsswitch.conf

change

asswd: files
group: files
shadow: files

to: passwd: files nis
group: files nis
shadow: files nis

This got rid of the:

passwd: Authentication service cannot retrieve authentication info

message and allowed normal users to change their password.