Monitoring, Management & Location Tracking

Q. I'm trying to change the root password, but it always fails with this error:

"passwd: Authentication failure"

A. There's a known issue in a version of Linux we used to ship which causes it. You can work around it like this:

1. Open the /etc/shadow file in vi

# vi /etc/shadow

2. Delete root's password by removing the encrypted password string, between two colons. For example, I made the change here by changing this:

root:$1$UABo9oks$ZKaI02.yx1w0ZYAYJYkNG/:13549:0:99999:7:::

to this: 

root::13549:0:99999:7:::

3. Save the changes from within vi:

:w!

4. Use the passwd command to create your new password: