*BSD News Article 66553


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
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From: scott@zorch.sf-bay.org (Scott Hazen Mueller)
Subject: Re: su / passwd problem on 2.1
Reply-To: scott@zorch.sf-bay.org
Sender: usenet@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Charlie Root)
Organization: At Home; Salida, CA
Message-ID: <Dq4r4L.6s2@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
References: <4ku9o6$mbs@solaris.cc.vt.edu> <4l3ovr$6dq@uriah.heep.sax.de>
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Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 22:14:45 GMT
Lines: 16

>>I am having a problem with the passwd command.  When I log in to X an do a
>>passwd it works, But if I su to another(non-root) user then run the passwd
>>program the following error is shown:

>>passwd: Permission denied

Yup.  passwd tries to open the tty device to read the password (instead of
using stdin/stdout/stderr).  The original user owns the tty, so when you run
under the ID other the other user, passwd does not have permission to access
the device.

Don't Do That.

-- 
Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or tandem!zorch!scott