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Date:      Thu, 5 Sep 2002 09:33:21 +0200
From:      Ruben de Groot <fbsd-q@bzerk.org>
To:        "Brian T. Schellenberger" <bts@babbleon.org>
Cc:        Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: passwd: Permission denied
Message-ID:  <20020905073321.GA65524@ei.bzerk.org>
In-Reply-To: <200209042156.04364.bts@babbleon.org>
References:  <200209041755.24531.bts@babbleon.org> <20020904231555.GC28529@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophi> <200209042156.04364.bts@babbleon.org>

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On Wed, Sep 04, 2002 at 09:56:03PM -0400, Brian T. Schellenberger typed:
> 
> I was trying to change the password from an xterm where I had done an
> 
> su - baduser
> 
> to change to the userid.  I thought that with the - option su acted 
> "just like" a login, but I was wrong.  When I actually logged in from a 
> console window, it worked just fine.
> 
> Live and learn.
> 
> Does anybody know how su - differs from a "real" login, exactly?

It's a matter of real and effective user id. Use
su - baduser
passwd baduser
to change this user's password, or just passwd baduser (as root).

> 
> Is there a way to "log in" for real in an X window?  If I try "login" it 
> says "not a login shell" and if I try telnet, I am reminded that I 
> chose not to set up a local telnet server--and it seems like a pretty 
> significant security comprimise if I have to set up a telnet server 
> just to allow local login in an X window.
> 
> Not that it's that big a deal, really--I only rarely need to do "real" 
> login things and for that I *can* switch to a console--but I would like 
> to know on general principles  . . .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> | When you cloned the account did you perhaps not give it a unique UID
> | number?  This snippet will print out how often each UID number is
> | mentioned in the master.passwd file:
> |
> |     awk -F: '{ print $3 }' < /etc/master.passwd | sort -n | uniq -c
> |
> | It can also occur if you remove the SUID bit from /usr/bin/passwd or
> | mount /usr nosuid, but then no one other than root would be able to
> | change passwords.
> |
> | 	Cheers,
> |
> | 	Matthew
> 
> -- 
> Brian, the man from Babble-On . . . .   bts@babbleon.org (personal)
> 
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