[ILUG] New User Logon Probs!

[Cillian S. Lyons]

Hi everyone, this is my first time using mailing this list but I have been 
a member of it for a few months.  I hope someone out there can help me as I 
seem to have come across a problem that is driving me mad!

I am the Network Admin and am using a Red Hat 6.2 Linux server as a Domain 
Controller and File server .I set up the server using the Securing and 
Optmising Red Hat 6.2 PDF book. I have run into a problem where when I try 
to add a user manually to the system, it accepts the entry in /etc/passwd 
and lets me give the ownership of the user's directory in /home.  But when 
I try to log in as that user, it states that the login is 
incorrect.  Looking at the /etc/shadow file shows no entry for that 
user.  So what I was, I followed the Rute PDF guide and edited the 
/etc/shadow and put a * in the hash field.  Only problem is that I had to 
chmod 600 to allow me to edit /etc/shadow! (What is the default octal chmod 
for /etc/shadow??) I looked at /var/log/messages and they state that the 
authenication service cannot retrieve authentication info!

Does this sound familar, has anyone experienced this and fixed it?? If so, 
could you share the fix for this with me?


Hoping you hear from you!


Cillian Lyons