On 7/25/22 18:39, ToddAndMargo via users wrote:
On 7/23/22 18:18, stan via users wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 10:04:37 -0700
> ToddAndMargo via users <users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>
>> On 7/22/22 08:12, stan via users wrote:
>>> passwd --unlock --expire root
>>
>> Hi Stan,
>>
>>
>> Why did you throw --expire on the above command?
>>
>> -e, --expire
>> This is a quick way to expire a password for an
>> account. The user will be forced to change the
>> password during the next login attempt. Available
>> to root only.
>>
>
> If the account has been locked, and never used, there is probably no
> password. This ensures that the root user, gets to set the password
> that they want. In fact, they can't access the root account without
> setting a new password. This doesn't apply to installs that already
> have an active root user (older installs). The new installs, from what
> I understand, do not set up a root account password as part of the
> install process. Everyone is supposed to use sudo, for its apparently
> increased security, or convenience, or lack of confusion, etc. As I
> said, I have only read about this, and haven't experienced it, so am
> not aware of the actual state of the root account when that occurs.
> Samuel has said the account always exists, so I assume that it must be
> locked if a login wasn't created during the install.
Okay, I understand now. I thought your command both
unlocked and set the password. And I thought there
was some reason you were messing with the guy making
him change it the next log in.
You can't actually run that command ("test" is a newly created user, so
in the same state as "root" would be):
# passwd --unlock --expire test
passwd: Only one of -l, -u, -d, -S may be specified.
Also:
# passwd --unlock test
Unlocking password for user test.
passwd: Warning: unlocked password would be empty.
passwd: Unsafe operation (use -f to force)
The only thing you have to do is "passwd root" to set a password. It's
not locked and there's no point in expiring the password to an account
you're using yourself...