trouble changeing password for user

I am trying to change a password for a user I just created. Everytime I do I recieve this message.

3004-622 An error occurred updating the password database.
3004-709 Error changing password for "heather1" : Value is invalid.

I have made plenty of users and never had this happen before. I can create the user mkdir and chown but can't can't change the password.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Dave

(a) confirm that heather1 truely does exist, eg in /etc/passwd or wherever.

(b) do you have password rules enforced?

Lacking further information about the system i can only guess:

1st possibility:
you have simply written the username wrong in some way. Find out by exploring the file /etc/passwd and see if you can find the name there and how it is written exactly (maybe you have made a typing error while creating the user?), use "set list" in vi to display possible non-printing characters

2nd possibility:
Maybe your root filesystem is full and that prevents /etc/passwd and /etc/security/passwd from being updated. Check by issuing "df -k /". If this is the case correct it and run the following commands to resynchronize the user database:

usrck -t ALL
pwdck -t ALL
grpck -t ALL

Afterwards the problem should be solved.

  1. possibility:
    The user database got corrupted because of some other problem. Th following commands should solve the problem for the user, <user-id> is the id of the user in question:

pwdck -n <user ID>
pwdck -p <user ID>

HTH

bakunin

... or you could try smit.

:smiley:

Ah, come on! Using simple tools to solve complex problems is not sportsmanlike, is it?

Btw. in case of possiblity 2 the way to rebuild the user database is not included in SMIT as far as i know. So probably this method is only feasible if you extend SMIT by writing a SMIT panel doing exactly that yourself. While this is indeed possible it goes far beyond the scope of the problem at hand. ;-))

bakunin

If the above tips do not work...

IBM - IY75796: COMMANDS ON LOCAL USERS FAIL IF NIS OR NETGROUP ENABLED.

The option 2 stated by BAKUNIN is the one that worked. I ran the pwdck -t ALL and it found the problem. I just selected yes to fix invalid password field.
Thank you for all your help
Dave