Oddly enough, you can get the same behaviour with a "security" package called BOKS installed on an IBM RS/6000. The package relies on a utmp-like file called btmp and if it has been corrupted its' passwd program will let *any* user change roots' password. In fact, if a users' password has "expired" (s)he will be *forced* to change roots' password. ! So, we had to create a backdoor since we lost our root password about half a dozen times a day... Honestly, we are now facing an upgrade to version 4 and hopefully our problems will go away. Urban Kaveus <uka@data.ks.se> Computer Dept. Karolinska Hospital S-171 76 Stockholm Sweden