Linux

Ask something
Discussion Locked

System Administration

0 helpful
9 replies

by rgooding

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I added a user (adduser) with rights to allow for resetting of passwords. However, when attempting to reset, the adduser is being prompted for the user's old password. is there a way to get around this..just like if adduser was root.

Thanks
Richard

9 replies

by techrepublic

Not really, no.

The whole point of passwd asking for the user's old password is so that I can't come up to an unlocked terminal, and reset a user's password arbitrarily. You *could* set them a null password, but that has obvious security issues too!

by techrepublic

It just occurred to me, you could use "sudo" to give them root access to only the passwd command.

This does have the obvious side effect of allowing them to change the root password, and do naughty stuff, but it is another option for you.

by rgooding

Reason for request:

We have a user who is "familiar" with unix administration and wants him to support the user accounts, without giving him full root access.
I was hoping that there might be a way to give specific authority to certain users other that root.
Thanks again

by talbotn

you can use sudo to give the user access to reset passwords as the root user. you can also restrict the options that they can pass to sudo so that the suer cannot reset the root password. Read the sudo man pages and documentation for specific help and sudo config details.

by anp04

Install sudo on you machine.

In the setting set
User_Alias PASS=
Cmnd_Alias PASSWORD=/usr/bin/passwd

and Finally,
PASS ALL=PASSWORD

Your power-user can then change the password by running: sudo /usr/bin/passwd

This discussion is closed to new replies.