Authentication token manipulation error

[Shneur]

many of my users just got this problem this past week or so that they cannot login to their CPanel. When I try to change the password from root using 'passwd USERNAME' I get this error:

Authentication token manipulation error

What is the problem and how can I fix it?

[nickn]

Open a ticket with the support desk. That error message is typically caused by malformed passwords in your /etc/passwd file, either they aren't shadowed, or something of the sort.

Either way, it's something not very safe to be assisted with over the public forums.

[mphosting]

ThePlanet just fixed this on my server with:

chmod 4755 /usr/bin/passwd

[chirpy]

However, that is the wrong permission for /etc/passwd so people should be very careful in doing the same. /etc/passwd should be chmod 644 only.

[shacker23]

I just encountered the same error message, but in my case the user was (very mysteriously) absent from /etc/shadow. Fixed it by manually adding a line for that user to /etc/shadow and then running passwd username.