User's password can not be set with passwd

Question

I am running Ubuntu as a server, but with X-windows setup. I have SSH , Samba and RAID 5 setup. Was having trouble browsing Samba shares from my Windows 7 laptop, so I thought it might be a problem with the version of Samba and started installing Samba4.

Well, Samba4 was whole another bucket worms. I managed to get the install process to partially finish. After being frustrated I rolled back and reinstalled Samba3.

Ate this point I tried to create a SSH session with my user freak_storm and the password did not work. so, I went to the box and tried loxing through the X interface. No luck. I tried another user and it logged in. I tried changing freak_storm's password with 'su passwd freak_storm' ,but it just returns a command prompt. So I tried with the current user 'passwd' and it asked for current password and command prompt. I logged out and logged back in and now that user is broken.

So, I logged through the recovery panel and dropped down to root.
1) check password file and it's not corrupt 2) Re-installed the passwd package 3) deleted and re-installed passwd package. 4) removed Samba3 and re-installed

I'm now stuck. I really don't know where to go from here?

any suggestions? Should I do a fresh install?

Answer 1

You need to first use passwd [username].

Then you need to do smbpasswd -a [username] for a new user. Otherwise just use smbpasswd [username].

Make sure both passwords are same.

Answer 2

su freak_storm passwd and su -u freak_storm passwd are two different things.

The -u option runs passwd as the freak_storm user (which is what you want, I think).