Re: usermod -l fails

From: sinister (sinister_at_nospam.invalid)
Date: 11/04/04 

Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 16:40:23 GMT

"Chris Mattern" <matternc@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:D7-dnX1afsrZ1BfcRVn-tw@comcast.com...
> sinister wrote:
>
>> Working on SunOs 5.9 (Sparc).
>>
>> When I try to change a username using the syntax
>> usermod -l newname oldname
>> I get this error message:
>> UX: usermod: ERROR: Cannot update system files - login cannot be
>> modified.
>> What's causing this?
>>
>> TIA,
>>
>> S
> You don't have write access to /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow. This is
> most likely because either you are not root, or your /etc directory
> is on an NFS share.

I was su'ed as root at the time. And I checked; /etc isn't on NFS. (I can
change the username with admintool, but not usermod.)

Does it matter what the permissions of passwd and shadow are? What are they
supposed to be?

> --
> Christopher Mattern
>
> "Which one you figure tracked us?"
> "The ugly one, sir."
> "...Could you be more specific?"

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