Comments on: Fixing “passwd: Authentication token manipulation error” when changing passwords

By: KALImaR

KALImaR — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:04:25 +0000

Im having the same 11.10 problem with this irritating disaster…Solutions please

By: Balkan

Balkan — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:01:58 +0000

Hi All,
I have similar problem as Dwarakesh, I set the automatic login on, and after that my password is not recognized for updates and software installation. I have no problem with keyring. Trying to set the new password in recovery mode did not help. Using Ubuntu 11.10.

By: Dwarakesh

Dwarakesh — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:27:21 +0000

yeah even I’m getting the same error on my sony e series laptop!!!!
I am currently running ubuntu 11.10!!!
thanks!

By: maryan

maryan — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:46:01 +0000

my only problem is: i forgot my superuser password, so i can not remove Likewise Open. I followed some online advice and reboot my machine, then the [recovery] option, and then> “Drop to root shell prompt”.

root@maryanche:~# passwd maryan
enter new UNIX password:
retype new UNIX password:
passwd: authentication token manipulation error
passwd: “password not updated” or something like that…
what do i do…?
thanks in advance…

By: slugstone

slugstone — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:54:15 +0000

ok that great, but how do I get passed a lost password problem so I can run this command?

By: Passwd: Authentication token manipulation error | chrisspenblog

Passwd: Authentication token manipulation error | chrisspenblog — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:01:27 +0000

[...] (or unfortunately), this is a common if unhelpfully ambiguous error. Several people have posted theories for the underlying cause as well as fixes. Of course, none of the solutions [...]

By: dushyant kayarkar

dushyant kayarkar — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:44:43 +0000

I attempted to update my password on Ubuntu today and encountered a strange error. I thought I’d disseminate my solution in hopes that it saves other time. A few suggest playing with pwconvert, /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd, but my solution was much simpler.

Basically, if you run passwd and receive the error,”passwd: Authentication token manipulation error”, and passwd: password unchanged . error may be in likewise open and libnss-ldap. Unfortunately, even having this installed — but not configured — will prevent you from using passwd to update a local users’s password. Fortunately, the fix is very easy if you don’t actually use Likewise Open – just remove it from your system with this command:

sudo apt-get remove likewise-open

sudo apt-get remove libnss-ldap

Confirm the prompts and after apt-get is done, you should be able to use passwd like normal. Thanks to Bug 302026 for guiding me to the solution. and refer http://www.ideaexcursion.com/2009/09/11/fixing-authentication-token-manipulation-error-when-changing-passwords-with-passwd/ this u get an solution.

By: RaghuRam

RaghuRam — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:02:38 +0000

Thanks a lot buddy

it helped me to change the root password when I got the error

trying to change the root password

By: Nacho

Nacho — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:23:42 +0000

Thanks a lot, dude!

By: Babu

Babu — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:49:44 +0000

thanks .. helped me a lot