On Tue, 5 Sep 2006 11:10:10 -0400, Charles Shannon Hendrix
<shannon@widomaker.com> wrote:

> 
> I have recently started having the following failure when trying to
> edit my passwords with vipw:
> 
> escape:/root
> [39] % vipw
> pwd_mkdb: /etc/ptmp.orig: File exists
> re-edit the password file? [y]: 
> 
> This is after I do my edits.  If I say Yes, it's just an endless loop.
> 
> Say no and no edits get put in master.passwd.
> 
> I can't find out what causes this or why it is a problem.
> 
Does /etc/ptmp.orig exist when you're not in vipw?  Does some other
process have it open?  Is another copy of vipw running?

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb