Unassigned password has expired

Question

On a RHEL6.4 box, I have a user who hasn't been assigned a password. In the /etc/shadow file, the password is shown as !!. This is intentional; that user only logs in using public key authentication.

However, I forgot to make sure that the user's "password" doesn't expire. In fact, I didn't realize that password expiration would affect you if you use public key authentication. Now it has, so whenever he logs in, he's prompted to enter his old password to change it. Since there is no old password, he's stuck.

Is there any way to fix this so the user can log in, without root access?

I am the administrator, just not a competent one :) I got rid of all the users with sudo privileges except this one. — JW., Jul 03 '14 at 15:18
`chage` is the command to change user password expiry information — HBruijn, Jul 03 '14 at 20:02

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 03 '14 at 14:37

This will require root access to fix the problem, because users without root rights should not be allowed to change critical settings, such as passwords. Otherwise there would be no way to enforce security.

But root can assign access to commands to users and groups using sudo, if that is required.

Unassigned password has expired

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