problems disabling cracklib

[John Blinka]

I'm managing a Redhat 9 system in which I'd like to disable
cracklib.

I've tried to disable cracklib by commenting out this line
in /etc/pam.d/system-auth:

password required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_cracklib.so retry=3 type=

and deleting the word "use_authtok" in the following line:

password sufficient /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so nullok use_authtok shadow

When I then try to change passwords using passwd, I get the
following error message:

Authentication token manipulation error.

after I enter my current password.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

The /etc/pam.d/passwd and system-auth files are unmodified
from the original installation.  The passwd file contains:

#%PAM-1.0
auth       required     pam_stack.so service=system-auth
account    required     pam_stack.so service=system-auth
password   required     pam_stack.so service=system-auth


and the system-auth file contains:


#%PAM-1.0
# This file is auto-generated.
# User changes will be destroyed the next time authconfig is run.
auth        required      /lib/security/$ISA/pam_env.so
auth        sufficient    /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so likeauth nullok
auth        required      /lib/security/$ISA/pam_deny.so

account     required      /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so

password    required      /lib/security/$ISA/pam_cracklib.so retry=3 type=
password    sufficient    /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so nullok use_authtok shadow
password    required      /lib/security/$ISA/pam_deny.so

session     required      /lib/security/$ISA/pam_limits.so
session     required      /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so

Thanks for youe help.

John Blinka