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illegal user

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5 replies

by teinfo

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I tried to change a password for a email user.

I got err: unknow user
I viewed /home, the account is there.

Tried to use chown command.
I got err: illegal user

Does anyone have this kind of problem and how to fix it?

Thank you in advance

5 replies

by stillatit

Having a directory in /home does not make a user valid. Is the user in /etc/passwd ? If not, he is not a user.

If there is a mailbox left over from a past user, you can delete it or move it. Same for the directory under /home.

Good luck.

by teinfo

i am not a UNIX guy. I went to /etc, I did not see any user name. I tried to /etc/passwd. I got error: not a directory. Can you let me know what commands to get me to /etc/passwd and list all users.

Thank Very Much.

by stillatit

Sorry about that. Here is some basic information, but you will need to be a system administrator to change the password of any account but your own.

The file named "passwd" in the directory "/etc" is where most unix systems store user names. You can look at the file with the command:
more /etc/passwd
This will display the file one screen at a time. Pressing the space bar takes you to the next page. The enter key advances 1 line. The "q" key quits the display (more) program.

The file itself is formatted as one user per line, with information fields separated by the colon (:) character. The fields are typically:
username:encryptedpassword:groupnumber:usernumber:realname:homedirectory:shell
If your system uses a shadow password file you may see "!" in the password fields.

If the "finger" command has not been disabled on your system, you can find out about any user by typing:
finger username
where you substitute the actual user name for "username" in the command.

To change the password for a user other than yourself:

First log on as (or su to) the user "root" which is the system administrator. If you are not the administrator, have the administrator do this password change.

The command to change passwords is
passwd username
where you put the actual user name in place of "username" in the command. You will be asked for the new password, then asked to type it again to confirm it. Some systems will offer to generate a random password for you.

Good luck.

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