user password

on HPUX
i create a user and give them a password (password1)

user logs in using password1
user changes their password to password2
user logs out

user logs in using password2
user trys to change password to password3 but it will only change if user uses password1 as the "old password"
user does the above and changes the password to password3

user logs in using password3
again user needs password1 as "old password" if they want to change password3 to password4

i can go in as admin and change the users password using password3 as "old password" but they always have to use password1

Question1
where is password1 being stored? (it can't be the /etc/passwd otherwise CDE login wouldn't work for the new passwords)

Question2
how to fix?

no errors when user (not adm) changes pwd ?
r u using nis ?
check perms of /bin/passwd, should be 6555
if hpux is s5r4 passwd is in /etc/shadow

error is "old password is incorrect"
r-sr-xr-x for /bin/passwd permissions
not using nis
not trusted system

?????

wrong 2555: r-sr-xr-x for /bin/passwd
should be 6555: r-sr-sr-x for /bin/passwd
owned by root group sys

why did you NOT mentioned that error message ?

thanks for the help guggach

unfortunately still no joy
all the users are in group dba is it worth
chgrp dba /bin/passwd ?

chgrp: sure not
maybe i saw the probl:

only the 1.st 8 passwd chars are significant.
password1 becomes password
and
password2 becomes password
so you try to change: 'password' to 'password'
you see ?
manually reset a shorter and unique pwd for all users ...

On HP-UX /usr/bin/passwd is 2555, not 6555. But 6555 should be harmless.

What version of HP-UX? Run "uname -a" to find out.

Have you converted it to a trusted system? If so, /tcb/files/auth/system/default will exist.

What does "grep passwd /etc/nsswitch.conf" return?

What does "grep passwd /etc/pam.conf" return?

guggach,
sorry i was trying to simplyfy my explaination by using password1 ,2. 3 etc
the actual passwords I used were 7 digits/number combinations

perderabo,
HPUX B.11
not trusted
nsswitch.conf returns nothing for passwd
pam.conf returns the following:
passwd password required /usr/lib/security/libpam_unix.1

listen guys thanks for the help so far I think that this problem has been created because our HPUX is a customized development, so probably our developers have caused this problem.

no worries guys I got a work around (users can use their first password, or admins can change the password for the user)

cheers anyway