From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Oct 31 12:43:59 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA06242 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 31 Oct 1996 12:43:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from revelstone.jvm.com (revelstone.jvm.com [207.98.213.2]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id MAA06234 for ; Thu, 31 Oct 1996 12:43:55 -0800 (PST) Received: (from fbsdlist@localhost) by revelstone.jvm.com (8.7.5/8.6.12) id PAA14795; Thu, 31 Oct 1996 15:43:09 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 15:43:09 -0500 (EST) From: Cliff Addy To: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Locked out of passwd - SOLVED Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Actually, it was not broken. I use su a lot to check out user accounts, switch between management accounts, etc. A client told me he was having trouble changing the password. And sure enough, I su'd to the account and couldn't do it. It turns out that when you su to another identity, you become that person only partially. One of the things you *cannot* do is change their password. The error message you get is utterly useless and misleading. Was this documented anywhere?