Subj : userdel: cannot rewrite password file
To   : comp.os.linux
From : tornado579
Date : Tue Sep 07 2004 04:50 am

Hello all,

           Till yesterday everything was fine with my linux box. Then
today when i tried to add a user my box started giving me problems.Now
whenever i try to add or remove any user linux blurts out error
message saying that it cannot create nor delete the users. Then i
googled a bit then i came to know that it was because of .lock files.
So, i removed passwd.lock,shadow.lock,group.lock and gshadow.lock
files along with passwd- , shadow- , group- and gshadow-. ( i dont
know what these - signfy)

Worst part is that even after i remove those files they are created
next time i use useradd or adduser preventing me from creating users
or deleting them :(.
Then its the same sad story once again.

Any idea whats happening here ?? 

Thanks in advance.

.