On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, learner wrote:

> Hello experts,
> I am facing an issue where i cannot create a password for the account
> I just created.
> I used the useradd command to create a user, but weh I used passwd
> command the os asked for new passwd and retype passwd. Once I did
> enter the passwd it says permission denied. I tried by changing the
> chmod on the shadow file to 777, but that did not help either. Just

With all respect, that was a VERY silly thing to do! Change the perms
back to 0400 now (read-only for root):

-r-------- 1 root sys 456 Jun 2 16:50 /etc/shadow

To answer your question: when changing another (local) user's password
as root, you don't get asked for the old password. Are you trying to
do this as root, or some other user?

HTH,

--
Rich Teer, SCSA, SCNA, SCSECA, OGB member

CEO,
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