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humbletech99
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Joined: 26 May 2005
Posts: 1229
Location: London
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 Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:07 pm Post subject: passwd: Critical error - immediate abort |
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I have just discovered a very unusual thing. Trying to change any password on my gentoo laptop is now not possible using the standard passwd utility. It seems that every time I try to type this on the command line even as root it quits with an error that doesn't tell what the problem is.
| Code: | # passwd
passwd: Critical error - immediate abort |
The permissions on the passwd and shadow files is as follows
| Code: | # ll /etc/passwd /etc/shadow
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2219 Feb 11 21:53 /etc/passwd
-rw------- 1 root root 1000 Feb 11 21:56 /etc/shadow |
An strace seems to indicate that the last thing that the passwd utility does is to open /etc/shadow and then do some seeking and then close it and write the error message.
I have found references to this all over the internet, mainly old redhat. The only solution I could see was to make sure the source was compiled with the right dict reference or something but I can't see how this could suddenly be a problem.
The shadow file seems to be in order having checked it out, as does the passwd file. Both have what look like fully functional lines for the root user and my regular user.
The last thing I did before trying to change the passwd of a new test user was to run unshadow from jtr. I guess this could have corrupted the original files but they look perfectly intact so my guess is there may be some file lock on /etc/shadow so I did an lsof /etc/shadow but this revealed nothing. I can still add and delete users using useradd and userdel but I can't set their passwords.
Any ideas how to check out if there is a file lock or how to fix this problem?
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poly_poly-man
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Joined: 06 Dec 2006
Posts: 2477
Location: RIT, NY, US
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| Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 4:06 am Post subject: |
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Odd.
Try remerging shadow, the password management package.
hih,
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bunder
Bodhisattva
Joined: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 5956
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| Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:36 am Post subject: |
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what does /etc/pam.d/passwd look like?
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humbletech99
Veteran
Joined: 26 May 2005
Posts: 1229
Location: London
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| Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:54 am Post subject: |
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I did try re-emerging shadow before posting but it didn't make any difference.
Here is the contents of the the pam for passwd
| Code: | $ sudo cat /etc/pam.d/passwd
Password:
#%PAM-1.0
auth include system-auth
account include system-auth
password include system-auth |
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jmcphe
n00b
Joined: 28 Mar 2003
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:49 pm Post subject: solved for me |
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| I solved this issue just now by re emerging cracklib |
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eccerr0r
Watchman
Joined: 01 Jul 2004
Posts: 10062
Location: almost Mile High in the USA
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| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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Just as a word of warning, if this happens randomly out in the blue and you know you just didn't do something to break it, do make sure you do intrusion detection, it's a sort of early warning system in the password system - the auth system noticed something went awry and here's your warning.
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pacho2
Developer
Joined: 04 Mar 2005
Posts: 2599
Location: Oviedo, Spain
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| Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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Fixed after | Code: | | emerge -1 cracklib shadow |
I have sent it to:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195017
Maybe a message should be added suggesting this solution if the error appears
Thanks |
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BizarroJack
n00b
Joined: 04 Dec 2003
Posts: 29
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 2:52 am Post subject: |
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| eccerr0r wrote: | | Just as a word of warning, if this happens randomly out in the blue and you know you just didn't do something to break it, do make sure you do intrusion detection, it's a sort of early warning system in the password system - the auth system noticed something went awry and here's your warning. |
What is this an indication of? It doesn't say anything meaningful (unless you've read the code, I guess)
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eccerr0r
Watchman
Joined: 01 Jul 2004
Posts: 10062
Location: almost Mile High in the USA
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 6:59 am Post subject: |
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I ran across this error quite a long while ago but forgot the details. I do recall hacking the passwd or shadow file with vi at one point thinking that it's 'fine' to do it, and possibly deleting some of the apparently temporary files. It then gave me that error till I reverted everything back the way it was, wasn't successful trying to edit the files back.
It's not much of intrusion protection but it screamed at me for mucking with the files without using vipw...
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tam
Guru
Joined: 04 Mar 2003
Posts: 569
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| Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:16 pm Post subject: |
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| pacho2 wrote: | Fixed after | Code: | | emerge -1 cracklib shadow |
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Thanks. Also helped me.
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Simonheld
Apprentice
Joined: 20 Nov 2005
Posts: 151
Location: Deepest Black Bavaria
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| Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:47 am Post subject: |
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| mir auch ! vielen dank! |
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only2sea
n00b
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 23
Location: Republic of Korea
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| Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks a lot. |
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romandas
n00b
Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 66
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 3:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks! This helped me out quite a bit. |
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pteppic
l33t
Joined: 28 Nov 2005
Posts: 781
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| Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:16 am Post subject: |
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I know it's almost thread necromancy, but worked for me too. Maybe I should change passwords more often...
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