converting to trusted mode again

[John Carr_2]

I have server all patched up to latest releases for 10.20 o/s. Using SAM to attempt to change to trusted mode I received an error "cant write protected database; password file unchanged" any ideas ?

:-) john.

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

You have of course checked for full / filesystem or existing /tcb directory, haven't you?

[Pete Randall]

John,

Try it manually using tsconvert (no options, just tsconvert). If it doesn't work, maybe you'll get more info.


Pete

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

Also check /etc/passwd for entries not starting with an alpha character.

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Hi John,

# pwcheck /etc/passwd

Regards,
Robert-Jan

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi John,

New hat's cool...

Check these:

1) full / FS
2) passwd file integrity - pwck
3) Perms on /tcb if it already exists

HTH,
Jeff

[John Carr_2]

Hi

Elmar

plenty of disk space no problem there and no /tcb to check this is part of the creation process.

Robert

pwck shows 2 user accounts with comments at start of line and one account which it could not find home dir !

Jeff

your suggestions already covered thanks

Pete

I shall try the manual tsconvert
and this is what i got :

# ./tsconvert
Creating secure password database...
Directories created.
Making default files.
System default file created...
Terminal default file created...
Device assignment file created...
Moving passwords...
Can't write protected database;
password file unchanged.
# ls -la /tcb
/tcb not found

tsconvert has NOT created any tcb directory or if it did it deleted it too.

:-( John.

[Elmar P. Kolkman · Accepted solution]

John,

comment (hash) signs are NOT allowed in /etc/passwd, so make a backup of /etc/passwd and then remove those users from the file and tsconvert should work.

[John Carr_2]

Elmar

just about to post you the output of pwck I suspect you hit the nail on the head I need to get sign off to do this without these accounts they may be needed later will be back with answer asap.

John.

[Elmar P. Kolkman]

In that case, just lock the users by changing the crypted passwd to something like '*LK*'. That way the users are disabled, but still exist and you only have to change the passwd as root and they are usable again.

[Pete Randall]

John,

I suspect it's the comments then. Once you remove them, it should work.


Pete

[Pete Randall]

John,

Oops, I forgot (again) to mention: nice hat!!


Pete

[Darren Prior]

John,

yes - it will be those comments in /etc/passwd!
At that part of the conversion it will have been struggling to find the right dir for the first letter of their login...

regards,

Darren.

[John Carr_2]

Hi

all sorted and YES it was the comment lines.
also there was a bad login account with no home directory but this did not stop the conversion.

thanks for the help - thread closed

:-) John.