Unable To Successfully Change Root Password

Robs58

Background:

Am running RHEL 6.5

[[email protected] ~]# uname -a

Linux nvger1.xxx.com 2.6.32-431.20.3.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Jun 6 18:30:54 EDT 2014 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[[email protected] ~]#

The host is an NIS client operating within an HPUX NIS environment.

What the problem is:

As user root, I am unable to successfully change the root password. Here is what happens whenever I attempt to do so:

[[email protected] ~]# passwd

Changing password for user root.

New password:

Retype new password:

passwd: Authentication token manipulation error

[[email protected] ~]#

I also created a test user account that is local to the host and is not

an NIS user account. I was also unsuccessful in trying to change the test user's password.

Please note that SELinux is disabled. Also, the root file system is mounted R/W

The /var/log/secure entry shows this:

Sep 4 11:26:12 nvger1 passwd: gkr-pam: couldn't update the 'login' keyring password: no old password was entered

Any ideas on what is preventing me from changing the root password and how this can be fixed? Thanks in advance.

Best Regards,

Rob S.

kodeswaran

Have you tried with changing password using single-user mode?

Robs58

I fixed the problem by running 'pwconv'; running this command created the /etc/shadow
file which, apparently, was missing. Bottom line is that creating the /etc/shadow
file allowed me to successfully run the 'passwd' command to change the root
password.