root password keeps expiring

[jludwig]

On Thursday 28 April 2005 08:46 pm, Claude Jones wrote:
> Having a bunch of issues brought on perhaps, by installing kde-redhat in
> level 5, but that's another story. One thing that is happenning that's
> baffling me is that my root password keeps expiring. Apparently, that's
> what's happenning as when I try to su - from a terminal, that's what the
> message says. Anywhere else I have to put in root password, the box just
> returns an error about 'wrong password'. I know how to go to single user
> and reset it, but I just did that three hours ago, and it has expired
> again! Can someone help? What can I do to stop this? I did open Kuser after
> the last reset and root was set to never expire, but two hours later, it
> has.
> --
> Claude Jones
> Bluemont, VA, USA
Have you checked to see if the password is being shadowed.

Have you set chattr for /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow ?

is selinux enabled ?

SHADOW(5)

NAME
       shadow - encrypted password file

DESCRIPTION
       shadow contains the encrypted password information for user’s accounts 
and optional the password aging information.  Included is

            Login name

            Encrypted password

            Days since Jan 1, 1970 that password was last changed

            Days before password may be changed

            Days after which password must be changed

            Days before password is to expire that user is warned

            Days after password expires that account is disabled

            Days since Jan 1, 1970 that account is disabled

       An account is considered to be inactive and is disabled if the password 
is not changed within the specified number of  days  after  the  password
       expires.  An account will also be disabled on the specified day 
regardless of other password expiration information.

       This information supercedes any password or password age information 
present in /etc/passwd.

       This file must not be readable by regular users if password security is 
to be maintained.

FILES
       /etc/passwd - user account information
       /etc/shadow - encrypted user passwords

-- 
John H Ludwig

Common sense is so rare, why do they call it common!!!

Manual customization of this file is not recommended, 
BUT WILL BE DONE!!!