Re: CRON: Authentication token is no longer valid; new one required

[ML mail <mlnospam@yahoo.com>]

The result of running passwd --status tells me that the password needs to be changed as actually I had in my /etc/shadow file only a "!" as password in order to safely disable the root account. It looks like this is not compatible with the cron.d system. I have changed the password and then locked the account (passwd -l) and now it works. The thing is that I wanted to remove the password from the /etc/shadow file as with the lock option the password is still there but with a "!" before it.




On Thursday, February 5, 2015 10:18 PM, Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> wrote:
ML mail wrote:
> I am trying to run cron from /etc/cron.d with the root account which
> has password disabled in order not to be able to login as root but
> when the cron entry wants to run it simply does not and show the
> following error message in the log file:
> 
> CRON[16785]: Authentication token is no longer valid; new one required

This reads to me that the password for root has expired.  It is the
state of an expired password that is a problem.

When you say that the root password has been disabled what exactly do
you mean by that statement?  Did you 'passwd -e root'?  If so that is
the source of the problem.  Root should not have an expired password.

What does this say?  Example from a system of mine.

  $ passwd --status root
  root P 05/01/2010 0 99999 7 -1


> Any idea how to run a cronjob from /etc/cron.d with the root account
> disabled?

I didn't have time to test this procedure but I would use 'passwd
root' to change the password and to fix the expiration.  (Actually *I*
would simply edit the /etc/shadow file and fix it but for others I
recommend using the tool to avoid a file editing mistake in that very
critical file.)  After updating the password I think the expiration
problem will have been fixed.  You don't actually ever have to use
that password.

Bob