I had the same problem when i first installed a fresh 1.5_ALPHA snapshot,
and it took me about aminute to figure out what was going on. 
After further investigation i found that passwd was now looking for
'yppasswd' or some other sort of configuration file, (i took a hunch and
did 'touch /etc/passwd.conf' and i saw some results, such as now when i
typed passwd without parameters i got back 'user@DOMAIN.TLD's password'

I do passwd -l user and everything seems to work fine. My guess is, like
the kerberos problems, we have some sort of problems with yp, or passwd not
having a configuration file...but im not really sure. I made sure all of
my 'yp' things were turned off...But i still got the same results. This
1.5_ALPHA machine is not networked either, and is plagued by frequent
'freezes' of unknown origin. Mostly just random, but when im executing a
command...most notably 'ls' on non native filesystems, and when doing a
'make' on some sources. This more than likely isn't related to the passwd
problem, just thought i'd mention mines not networked either...

-William

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On Tue, 4 Jul 2000, Brian Stark wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have just completed a new 1.5_ALPHA install and I have noticed that
> the passwd command is not working the same as it did on 1.4Z.
> 
> Specifically, when I type "passwd" as root to change the root password
> I simply see the following until I press CONTROL-C:
> 
>   # passwd
>   ^C
> 
> If I try to specify the user I get the same results:
> 
>   # passwd -l root
>   ^C
> 
> It is not until I use the "-l" parameter that this works:
> 
>   # passwd -l root 
>   Changing local password for root.
>   New password:
>   Retype new password:
>   #
> 
> On my 1.4Z system this is what I see when I try to hange the password for
> root:
> 
>   palomino:root# passwd
>   Changing local password for root.
>   New password:
>   Retype new password:
>   palomino:root#
> 
> Any ideas what is causing this? My /etc/nsswitch.conf file is the same 
> on the 1.5_ALPHA and 1.4Z systems... Some information that might be useful
> is that the 1.5_ALPHA system is an isolated one (i.e., not on a network).
> 
> Brian
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | Brian Stark                       | Internet : bstark@siemens-psc.com |
> | Siemens PT&D, Inc.                | Voice    : +1 763 536-4697        |
> | Power Systems Control Division    | Fax      : +1 763 536-4919        |
> | 7225 Northland Drive, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota 55428   USA            |
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> 
>