# peculiar password problem



## throAU (Oct 8, 2012)

All,

I've got a couple of FreeBSD 8.3 boxes and have a wierd problem where changing my password does not appear to work.

I can run the command, enter the new password, it doesn't complain, yet when I attempt to log in again via SSH, my old password is the only way to get in.

However, if I check the contents of /etc/master.passwd the line for my user account has been updated with a new hash.

One of the machines in question is vanilla BIND DNS server, and up to date via freebsd-update.  The other one is a mail relay and runs sendmail only.

The machine is fairly well firewalled off from the internet and is currently up to date with security hotfixes:  only incoming port 53 tcp/udp is allowed through the ACL in front of it (no SSH allowed into our network) - so I'm reasonably confident it isn't likely to have been hacked.

Any idea how I can troubleshoot further?  I can't see any diagnostic info available from the passwd command (no verbose option) and the hash does seem to update...


----------



## AlexJ (Oct 8, 2012)

Try to run pwd_mkdb(8)
to rebuilt (possibly corrupted) database


----------



## throAU (Oct 9, 2012)

Cheers, will try that.

And just to confirm in case anyone is thinking it - its not an SSH keyphrase


----------



## SirDice (Oct 9, 2012)

Do you perhaps use LDAP? The passwd(1) command would only change the local account, not the LDAP account.


----------



## throAU (Oct 18, 2012)

No LDAP.  pwd_mkdb(8) fixed it.


----------



## SirDice (Oct 18, 2012)

Which begs the question, how did you change your password?


----------



## throAU (Oct 19, 2012)

I ran the passwd command.

Never had an issue with this before, and its pretty standard unix, so unless something has changed.... ?


----------



## AlexJ (Oct 19, 2012)

throAU said:
			
		

> I ran the passwd command.
> 
> Never had an issue with this before, and its pretty standard unix, so unless something has changed.... ?



I advised you to run it because I got this problem twice - one case was after unsuccessful installation of some port(don't remember which one) and the second one - it was failing HDD.


----------

