Hi! I'm sure, if you try it now it works. ;-) If this happens again: /sbin/init.d/nscd restart is your friend. On Fri, 18 Feb 2000, Tera wrote:

I work with SuSE 6.2 kernel 2.2.10 on some linux-boxes

Today I made a new user with "useradd <username>" (I was logged in as root via ssh), and tried at the next command, to give this new user a password with passwd <username>.

The system replies: passwd: Unknown user <username>

but the user is listed in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow but it is not possible to set a new password with "passwd".

I checked the passwd-binary with tripwire, but checksums are OK

Trying with "userdel" to remove the user, causes system to tell: userdel: user <username> does not exist

so I decided to remove the lines manually.

Might it be that the system is compromised by intruders? Am I blind for some easy things?

Thanks for all ideas!

Thomas Hartl

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Today Tera slept on the keyboard and thought about [suse-security] passwd...

I work with SuSE 6.2 kernel 2.2.10 on some linux-boxes Today I made a new user with "useradd <username>" (I was logged in as root via ssh), ... to give this new user a password with passwd <username>. The system replies: passwd: Unknown user <username> but the user is listed in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow

Hi! I had the same problme few weeks ago. I found out that a reboot solved the problem, after a little investigation and some help I think it is this name caching daemon (nscd). Try to restart it after useradd, maybe this solves the problem. ciao gregor -- Gregor Hlawacek 8700 Leoben http://www.unileoben.ac.at/~m9327555/ Austria ###################################################################### In 1968 it took the computing power of two C-64 to fly to the moon. Now, 1999 you need the computing power of PentiumII 400 to open a simple window. Something must have gone wrong!

Yep. I had this problem for a while before I figured out what it was w/ some help from a guy @ suse. My solution _used_ to be to wait 10 or 15 seconds after calling useradd before doing things like passwd and chfn, etc. But the problem in 6.2 is nscd which caches user name/group stuff (in addition to DNS stuff), and adduser doesn't clear this cache so the user is cached as nonexistant. nscd isn't necessary to run; you can disable it in /etc/rc.config. Or you can remove the user/group config junk from /etc/nscd.conf ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tera" To: Sent: 18 February 2000, Friday 04:48 Subject: [suse-security] passwd does not work | I work with SuSE 6.2 kernel 2.2.10 on some linux-boxes | | | Today I made a new user with "useradd <username>" (I was logged in as root via ssh), | and tried at the next command, | to give this new user a password with passwd <username>. | | The system replies: | passwd: Unknown user <username> | | but the user is listed in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow | but it is not possible to set a new password with "passwd". | | I checked the passwd-binary with tripwire, but checksums are OK | | Trying with "userdel" to remove the user, causes system to tell: | userdel: user <username> does not exist | | so I decided to remove the lines manually. | | Might it be that the system is compromised by intruders? | Am I blind for some easy things? | | | Thanks for all ideas! | | Thomas Hartl | | --------------------------------------------------------------------- | To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-security-unsubscribe@suse.com | For additional commands, e-mail: suse-security-help@suse.com | |