Can't change password via cpanel

[kirkmiesle]

Here's a weird problem.. suddenly, people unable to change their password via cpanel. When they login to cpanel and attempt to change their password they get an error message that says:

"There was an error manipulating the password file. This generally means you entered your old password incorrectly."

If we login to their cpanel as root via WHM we don't get the error, but if we login with their username/password we are indeed able to duplicate the problem..

Does anybody have any ideas on how to fix this? Could it be a permissions problem?

Thanks
Kirk

[cPanelTodd]

Try changing the password using the command line with the 'passwd' command. Check this as both root and a user and see what errors if any you receive as root and as the user.

As root:

passwd USERNAME

As a user

su USERNAME
passwd

[kirkmiesle]

It works if I do it via the command line as root.

When I SU to the user and try it, it says "passwd: Only root can specify a user name."

Kirk

[cPanelTodd]

Login as root and try using the command below:

sudo -u USERNAME passwd

However if it works as root, the passwd binary is probably missing the suid bit.

Check permissions on /usr/bin/passwd they should be set at below.

-r-s--x--x  1 root root 21200 Jun 17  2005 /usr/bin/passwd*

[kirkmiesle]

Ah yes, how would I go about setting this correctly - I assume umask? I'm not sure what the "s" stands for..

[cPanelTodd]

You can set this using the command below

chmod +s /usr/bin/passwd

[kirkmiesle]

Awesome - that fixed it! Thank you!

Kirk

[carteluo]

You can set this using the command below

chmod +s /usr/bin/passwd

I got the exact same issue, and that command did the trick!

Thank you.

[grindlay]

This worked for me too, but my permissions on /etc/bin/passwd are now:
r-s--s--x

Is that still OK?
G.

[preeti]

This worked for me too