Subj : Re: userdel: cannot rewrite password file
To   : comp.os.linux
From : Jeroen Geilman
Date : Wed Sep 08 2004 04:19 pm

tornado wrote:

> 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 ?? 

Many.
Is the box on the Internet ?
You may have been rooted.
Did you play around with permissions on these executables ?
Are you root ?
Doing su without getting a login shell may well prevent you from running 
these commands.


-- 
J

All your bits are belong to us - again.

.