chage: can't lock password file

**waynegro** · 06-13-2005

Hi, I'm having a problem running chage on my server all of a sudden, msec which runs every hour is crapping out because it can't run it and /var/log/auth.log filling up with chage: can't lock password file and can't lock shadow password file. If anyone has an idea of how to fix this please let me know, I will really appreciate it, thanks.

**Flatline** · 06-13-2005

What user permissions does that job use? If I remember correctly, chage (which changes password aging parameters) requires full root access.

**waynegro** · 06-13-2005

-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 32600 Feb 24 2003 /usr/bin/chage*
SUID has not been removed but I don't think that has anything to do with it, if it helps I had to reboot the server a few days ago, this problem didn't start until after a day after rebooting, but might be related, any suggestions..

**Flatline** · 06-13-2005

Do you get the same problem if you run chage manually as root?

**waynegro** · 06-13-2005

yup

**Flatline** · 06-13-2005

Do you actually have an /etc/passwd.lock file or /etc/shadow.lock file present?

**waynegro** · 06-13-2005

no both are not there.

**Flatline** · 06-13-2005

What is your system's security level set as?

**waynegro** · 06-13-2005

can you tell me how i can check what the system security level is set at?

**Flatline** · 06-13-2005

Open Mandrake Control Center. At the top of the window, click on Options and select Expert mode. Then you can click on the Security tab and select the module there (it should be the first one).

Alternately, you can open the /etc/sysconfig/msec file and look at the SECURE_LEVEL= variable.

Thread Tools

Display

chage: can't lock password file

Posting Permissions