Changing password on the Ubuntu operating system

Changing password on a Unix or Linux operating system is normally straight forward. However, changing password on an Ubuntu operating system can be a problem.

Let us test this. In our example, we want to have the password for a non privileged user changed.

We boot up an Ubuntu 9.10 operating system. We log on as a non privileged user. We click System and then click “Users and Groups”. We click our user account. We click “Change password”. We type in our current password and authenticate. We type in our new password. We retype the new password. We click “Change password”. The dialogue confirm, that our password has been changed. This seems good! We click Close. However, now a dialogue appear. It want us to authenticate again. We type in our new password. This fails. We end up with an error message, that say “The configuration could not be saved. An unknown error occured”. We log out and must try a different approach.

It seems, that changing password is an untested feature in Ubuntu.

We log on as a privileged user. Click System. Click “Users and Groups”. We click the keys to make changes and enter our password. We click the user. We click Properties. We enter the new password. We take a look at his privileges. Close. Now, we are back at the “Users and Groups” dialogue. We close that as well. We log out and log on as the non privileged user.

It worked. It seems, that only privileged users can change password for non privileged users.