Changing a users password in /etc/passwd instead of NIS

[Venkatachalam, Saravanakumar]

Dave, 
 In Linux we have 'passwd' and 'yppasswd' commands..
the yppasswd will be invoked by passwd command if the user do not have 
local account..

check your nsswitch.conf,
Is this is first time you are trying to set the password for the user ( 
is he a new user) ? if so make sure that the user has  entry in /etc/shadow
How do you tell that the machine is contacting NIS for password change ?

 I have the same environment and I'm able to change the password, have a 
look at the output, although it contacts NIS for password change, at 
last it says password updated successfully.

$ passwd user1
Changing password for user user1.
New password:
BAD PASSWORD: it is based on a dictionary word
Retype new password:
RPC: Server can't decode arguments

The password has not been changed on nisserver.
NIS password could not be changed.
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.

regards,
saravan


Dave Martini wrote:

> I would like a user to change his password on his local RHEL 3 account 
> but when typing
>
> passwd
>
> it is going to NIS since this machine is a NIS client.
>
> In Solaris there is a command
>
> passwd -r files
>
> which means to update the local files but I don't see that option in 
> redhat.
>
> How do I change the local account password for a user.
>
> Thank You.
> Dave Martini
> LLNL
>