On 16/02/11 13:28, James Bensley wrote: > Hi List, > > We have a CentOS VPS running a web site in a DC far away. The chap that > dev's this site told me he couldn't SFTP in yesterday, his password was > being rejected (I went to his desk to confirm and saw it was telling him > the password was incorrect but neither him nor me had changed it and we are > the only two with access to this VPS). So I logged in as root and reset his > password, be he still couldn't log in (same problem, claiming the password > was wrong). > > [root at server ~]# passwd webdevuser > Changing password for user webdevuser. > New UNIX password: > Retype new UNIX password: > passwd: all authentication tokens updates successfully. > > I tried to SSH in as the web dev user and it wouldn't let me in. Returning > back to my root console window; > > [root at server ~]# su - webdevuser > [webdevuser at server ~]# passwd > Changing password for user webdevuser. > Changing password for webdevuser. > (current) UNIX password: > passwd: Authentication token manipulation error > > Firstly; I am stracthing my head as to why his password was no longer > working in the first place? > > Secondly; Why I can't reset it? > > Googling around many people suggest there is a discrepancy between the > /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files and by deleting /etc/shadow and using > pwconv to recreate shadow and the same for /etc/groups, deleting gshadow > recreating it with grpconv will solve the problem but I still can't login > as the web dev user. > > Any ideas anyone? - Could the account have become locked somehow? (passwd -u $user) Or could the account have become expired? - Are the permissions strict on the users ~/.ssh? (0700 on the directory, and 0600 on any files inside that directory - like authorized_keys ...) - Is SELinux in Enforced mode and are the SELinux file context correct on /home? (restorecon -rv /home) Also double check /var/log/messages, /var/log/secure and /var/log/audit/audit.log carefully when trying to log in as that user. kind regards, David Sommerseth