[cobalt-users] incorrect pop password error?

["Kevin D" <kdlists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

G'day list:

My email client keeps reporting incorrect password for a particular pop
account. I know for a fact that this password was never changed.First off,
let me tell you that I already searched for the hidden *.pop file in
/var/spool/mail and it does not exist.

This incorrect password error seems to be a regular occurence of late, so I
decided to delve into it. I wrote a quick perl script using the crypt
function to check the stored, encrypted password in the shadow file. I
checked this particular username, which cannot log in via pop, and found
that the password that I was trying unsuccessfully to log in with was indeed
the password stored in the /etc/shadow file.

Here's what the password error produced in the messages log:

Nov 30 16:40:36 ns1 in.qpopper[7975]: drose at firewall.mtsolutions.net
(216.41.85.162): -ERR [AUTH] PAM authentication failed for user "drose":
Authentication failure (7)

Nov 30 16:40:36 ns1 in.qpopper[7975]: [AUTH] Failed attempted login to drose
from host (firewall.mtsolutions.net) 216.41.85.162

Then I went to the cobalt user admin and reset the password. After that, I
could log in with the original password.

What is going on here? What suddenly caused the qpopper to be unable to
validate this username? Will I have to do this eventually for every account
on the server???

Kevin