Arch Linux

gabx

Member

From: Geneva, Switzerland

Registered: 2011-11-20

Posts: 203

Website

[SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

I was converting my user account to a systemd-homed managed one, following systemd.io converting to homed. I edited /etc/passwd, etc/shadow and /etc/group accordingly, then migrated my original home directoty to the new one. I can't remember how, but at one point I couldn't use my password, as it was refused. I could enter it many times, nothing was taken into account.
I thus decided to reverse to the original setup, with no homed. I have been left with a globally working system but unstable. For example, my zsh settings were not honored, running sudo was not possible as entering the password was not taken into account with message : Password incorrect or not sufficient for authentication of user gabx and login to the user session through GDM was painful: I had to enter something like 10-20 times my password, even sometimes letting an empty space, before I could log into the user session.
I created a very basic new user and everything was working fine with it. So I deducted my issue was only due to my original user broken.
I replaced my home folder with a backup one, and now my system works better. Especially, app settings are now honored (looks like my settings of .config file was again taken into account). The only thing that is still broken is entering my password. When I want to operate as root,

 [sudo] password for gabx:
Password incorrect or not sufficient for authentication of user gabx.

, the system does not accept it. But if I run the su command, it works with no problem.

I have no idea how to fix this passwd story. I of course changed my passwd with the passwd command, but nothing changed (I kept the same one).
I still have my user listed in homed:

# homectl list
NAME UID   GID   STATE    REALNAME           HOME       SHELL
gab  60060 60060 inactive gab                /home/gab  /usr/bin/zsh
gabx 1000  1000  inactive /home/gabx.homedir /home/gabx /usr/bin/zsh

Maybe is this the root of my issue with a user managed by homed AND still the classic way? I can't operate with homectl as I am not able to enter my password when asked to confirm a command.

Any idea what's going on and what are the hints to help me?

EDIT
I found this  archlinux bug report   where one user described exactly the same behavior at login session window:
What happens in swaylock is that I will enter my password (correctly!) multiple times and will be denied entry, and then if I enter an empty password, I am denied entry, but then eventually it will unlock

Last edited by gabx (2025-05-25 15:19:20)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,443

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

pacman -Qikk pam pambase shadow

Why is homed still enabled/running?

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gabx

Member

From: Geneva, Switzerland

Registered: 2011-11-20

Posts: 203

Website

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

It is running because I let it running. I will disable it.

Name            : pam
Version         : 1.7.0-2
Description     : PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) library
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : http://linux-pam.org
Licenses        : GPL-2.0-only
Groups          : None
Provides        : libpam.so=0-64  libpamc.so=0-64  libpam_misc.so=0-64
Depends On      : audit  glibc  libaudit.so=1-64  libcrypt.so=2-64  libnsl  libtirpc  libxcrypt  pambase
                  systemd-libs
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : apparmor  cifs-utils  cosmic-greeter  cups  freerdp  gdm  gnome-keyring  greetd  kbd
                  libcap  libpwquality  malcontent  openssh  polkit  qemu-img  qemu-pr-helper
                  qemu-system-aarch64  qemu-system-alpha  qemu-system-arm  qemu-system-avr  qemu-system-hppa
                  qemu-system-loongarch64  qemu-system-m68k  qemu-system-microblaze  qemu-system-mips
                  qemu-system-or1k  qemu-system-ppc  qemu-system-riscv  qemu-system-rx  qemu-system-s390x
                  qemu-system-sh4  qemu-system-sparc  qemu-system-tricore  qemu-system-x86
                  qemu-system-xtensa  qemu-vmsr-helper  shadow  sudo  systemd  util-linux
Optional For    : snapper
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 2.90 MiB
Packager        : Tobias Powalowski <tpowa@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Fri 07 Feb 2025 12:08:15 PM CET
Install Date    : Fri 21 Feb 2025 08:59:58 AM CET
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

pam: 602 total files, 0 altered files
Name            : pambase
Version         : 20230918-2
Description     : Base PAM configuration for services
Architecture    : any
URL             : https://www.archlinux.org
Licenses        : GPL-3.0-or-later
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : None
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : pam
Optional For    : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 2.68 KiB
Packager        : David Runge <dvzrv@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Thu 15 Aug 2024 10:00:08 AM CEST
Install Date    : Tue 20 Aug 2024 02:41:46 PM CEST
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

pambase: 8 total files, 0 altered files
Name            : shadow
Version         : 4.17.4-1
Description     : Password and account management tool suite with support for shadow files and PAM
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://github.com/shadow-maint/shadow
Licenses        : BSD-3-Clause
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : glibc  acl  libacl.so=1-64  attr  libattr.so=1-64  audit  libaudit.so=1-64  libxcrypt
                  libcrypt.so=2-64  pam  libpam.so=0-64  libpam_misc.so=0-64
Optional Deps   : None
Required By     : accountsservice  base  git  podman  util-linux
Optional For    : bauh
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Installed Size  : 3.94 MiB
Packager        : David Runge <dvzrv@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Thu 20 Mar 2025 03:22:48 PM CET
Install Date    : Sun 30 Mar 2025 06:38:08 PM CEST
Install Reason  : Installed as a dependency for another package
Install Script  : No
Validated By    : Signature

warning: shadow: /usr/bin/groupmems (GID mismatch)
warning: shadow: /usr/bin/groupmems (Permissions mismatch)
shadow: 576 total files, 1 altered file

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,443

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

Also (even if that fixes your problem)

stat /usr/bin/groupmems

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gabx

Member

From: Geneva, Switzerland

Registered: 2011-11-20

Posts: 203

Website

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

# chmod 750 /usr/bin/groupmems
# systemctl stop systemd-homed

all these fix the issue. I can now log in and sudo with my password normally. I still have warning: shadow: /usr/bin/groupmems (GID mismatch)

Thank you for your help.

gabx

Member

From: Geneva, Switzerland

Registered: 2011-11-20

Posts: 203

Website

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

Also (even if that fixes your problem)

stat /usr/bin/groupmems

$ stat /usr/bin/groupmems
  File: /usr/bin/groupmems
  Size: 47184     	Blocks: 96         IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 0,29	Inode: 3669532     Links: 1
Access: (0750/-rwxr-x---)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (  983/  groups)
Access: 2025-03-30 18:38:08.000000000 +0200
Modify: 2025-03-20 15:22:48.000000000 +0100
Change: 2025-05-23 10:16:12.171308386 +0200
 Birth: 2025-03-30 18:38:08.344709331 +0200

tekstryder

Member

Registered: 2013-02-14

Posts: 321

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

/usr/bin/groupmems should be 2750.

$ stat /usr/bin/groupmems
  File: /usr/bin/groupmems
  Size: 47184     	Blocks: 96         IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 259,2	Inode: 1847187     Links: 1
Access: (2750/-rwxr-s---)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (  974/  groups)
Access: 2025-03-22 20:34:24.026948256 -0400
Modify: 2025-03-20 10:22:48.000000000 -0400
Change: 2025-03-21 08:58:23.022874048 -0400
 Birth: 2025-03-21 08:58:22.572159408 -0400

See also:

• https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p2168683

What's the output of both:

sudo grpck
sudo pwck

gabx

Member

From: Geneva, Switzerland

Registered: 2011-11-20

Posts: 203

Website

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

/usr/bin/groupmems should be 2750.

I don't understand: mod is 2750, no?

$ stat /usr/bin/groupmems
  File: /usr/bin/groupmems
  Size: 47184     	Blocks: 96         IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 259,2	Inode: 1847187     Links: 1
Access: (2750/-rwxr-s---)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (  974/  groups)
Access: 2025-03-22 20:34:24.026948256 -0400
Modify: 2025-03-20 10:22:48.000000000 -0400
Change: 2025-03-21 08:58:23.022874048 -0400
 Birth: 2025-03-21 08:58:22.572159408 -0400

See also:

• https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p2168683

What's the output of both:

gabx@magnolia ➤➤ ~ % sudo grpck
[sudo] password for gabx:
gabx@magnolia ➤➤ ~ % sudo pwck
no matching password file entry in /etc/shadow
add user 'rpc' in /etc/shadow? no
no matching password file entry in /etc/shadow
add user 'open-webui' in /etc/shadow? no
no matching password file entry in /etc/shadow
add user 'ollama' in /etc/shadow? no
no matching password file entry in /etc/shadow
add user 'gluster' in /etc/shadow? no
pwck: no changes

Should I add the users as suggested?

sudo grpck
sudo pwck

Last edited by gabx (2025-05-23 16:12:57)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,443

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

You're not gonna login as those users, are you?
Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

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tekstryder

Member

Registered: 2013-02-14

Posts: 321

Re: [SOLVED] passwd command not working properly

I don't understand: mod is 2750, no?

Not in the output you provided in post #6, no.

The link I provided explains the "why" and the "how".

Those 4 accounts were not created entirely properly, but without any need for login should™ not be an issue as Seth pointed out.