Unable to log in due to user login password verification issues

Ask Fedora
1

Dear Developer,
Two days ago, I reinstalled the system because I replaced the hard drive. After shutting down normally yesterday, when I logged in again today, it kept saying the password was wrong (I can assure you I haven’t forgotten it; I even wrote it down on paper). I tried changing the GRUB settings to enter single-user mode to change the password. After changing it, /etc/shadow was updated, but I still can’t log in to the system.
I think the hash check probably went wrong for some reason, and in the end, I reinstalled the system and lost the data I hadn’t backed up from a day ago.

System:Fedora 44
System User Name: meoww
SystemPassword(OLD):$9~AFn35!~Br#
INFO:Password is deprecated!!! NO SECURITY RISK!!!

3

You are engaging with a forum mostly supported by volunteer users. Fedora just packages software from upstream developers.

Was this because you were having problems with the drive? It is possible that the problem was not with the drive but some other hardware or firmware issue.

4

I wonder whether this was also a case of what a Fedora KDE user found, where the password hash seemed to be rejected:

May 06 19:59:50 enpca-fedora accounts-daemon[7271]: request by system-bus-name::1.343 [/usr/bin/systemsettings pid:7284 uid:1000]: set password and hint of user 'testuser1' (1001)
May 06 19:59:50 enpca-fedora accounts-daemon[26506]: chpasswd: (line 1, user testuser1) invalid password hash
May 06 19:59:50 enpca-fedora accounts-daemon[26506]: chpasswd: error detected, changes ignored

There’s likely no way of recovering logs if you’ve already reinstalled, but would be useful to see them if it happens again.

5

Yeah, I should keep a log next time. thx

6

ok thx

7

You should not post your passwords in a public forum. I anonymized it …

It might has todo that you not have the correct keyboard layout as you use special characters in it.

8

Totally agree.

But…if you click on the pencil icon you can still see the revision.

If you have the permissions, I suggest you use the option to Hide Revisions.

9

Sorry I do not have. I will flag the topic then it gets invisible. Ask the Moderators if they can remove the history. The flag will not count as an “punishment” just to inform them. ok?

10

Correct, only moderators and admins see that option, so flagging is probably best right now.

Not trying to cause a mess…just help if I can :slight_smile:

11

OP has already reinstalled over their system, so there shouldn’t be any risk here. Unless they have used the same password for something else - which of course you shouldn’t do anyway.

Up to them if they want to flag it and have the history wiped.

ankursinha (FranciscoD) 13

I don’t think the edit history can be easily modified. I’d please ask the user to change their password(s) immediately. :frowning:

1 Like
14

I think they already did, since:

  1. They say they have reinstalled over their system
  2. They say “SystemPassword (old)”
15

That is not the point. I try to learn the users to (selves) moderate and keep the new guidelines in mind.

Alternative to remove the history is just to delete the main topic :slight_smile: This the OP could do when I am not mistaken?

This would also give the OP the chance to get a better “fist topic” for the next one :wink:

16

I don’t understand what is the security risk in posting an obsolete password for a system that you have reinstalled over.

Then I don’t know what the point is.

17

Actually, this password has been deprecated

18

No need to worry because this password has already been deprecated

19

Admins and mods don’t see this when clicking on the pencil icon?

hide revision

20

bro I can’t understand why making a password that’s no longer in use public would be a security risk. If it’s caused by special characters in the password, we could try to reproduce the problem.

21

Yeah, the special characters (and password length and complexity generally) are actually interesting information.

I had been wondering whether the problem I linked to above (and the similar problem experienced by the user here) were due to using over-simple passwords. (Maybe the system refused to apply an over-simple password, and failed to properly communicate the error.)

If your issue is the same cause (which tbf we don’t really know without logs), it would rule out the idea that a password strength check is behind it.

22

If a warning pops up because the password system is too simple but the change still goes through, I compared the /etc/shadow file before and after.