Strange: "passwd: System error" after squeeze (testing) install

[Umberto-Micro]

Hi all,

The strangest thing happened. I install Debian testing with the "squeeze Alpha1" netinstall cd. All seem to go fine and the installer complete me select a root password and make a normal user account. However, gone the first boot my user account did not work and I might also not login as root, it look liked I forget the passwords for both accounts. When rebooted in healing mode, I got
Strange: "passwd: System error" after squeeze (testing) install. What's going on ? Please help.

[Raine]

If I understand correctly that some other package someway pulled a position to /etc/pam.d/samba in the /etc/pam.d/common-password. It might be likely, but also persons other packages shouldn't touch your common-password, except some pattern scripts that you clearly authorize. Anyway, it might be a good idea to look in that situation. If you have backups, you capacity be able to find the last alteration date of your common-password (before the change you did to fix it, of course). The apt log might then tell you which packages were efficient that day, so you can try to find out what went wrong. It is a whole lot of trouble though, so you can also hope significant person else runs into this. All the best.

[Sam.D]

The line in /etc/pam.d/common-password which many pam_winbind.so. Run passwd again to set your root password, or to set the password of any user. Reboot, case logins and the passwd command will work again. The winbind dpkg is configured when you select yes for DHCP addition with WINS servers through install. That dpkg-config adds the pam_winbind module to /etc/pam.d/common-password. On clean install, this can even grounds passwd not to be able to put the root pass.. locking you out of your finished debian install on first boot. Booting in single user to change the password doesn't help, passwd fails on execution and writes this line on stderr. All the best.

[ZeDaX]

I wonder how this configuration came in place, considering I Installed the server lately from scratch and edited configuration-files very carefully and try to appreciate every single thing I changed anywhere. I installed samba, though, and condensed its configuration file smb.conf. I'll have to look into this issue and locate out where this is configured (in /etc/pam.d/ I guess) and change it. Samba shouldn't do that. Strange indeed, but good to hear it's solved now. All the best.

[ThoMas321]

His proposal is if I understand properly that some other package. Somehow pulled a reference to /etc/pam.d/samba in the /etc/pam.d/common-password. It might be possible, but also those other packages shouldn't touch your common-password, except some configuration. Scripts that you explicitly authorize. Anyway, it might be a good idea to look in that circumstances. If you have backups, you might be able to find the last change date of your common-password (before the change you did to fix it, of course). The apt log might then tell you which packages were updated that day, so you can try to find out what went wrong. It is a whole lot of trouble though, so you can also hope.