Avamar: Password expired messages warning received when logging in with OS accounts

Summary: After an Avamar Upgrade, a warning message "You are required to change your password immediately" is received when logging in to Avamar.

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Symptoms

After an upgrade, the following messages appear when logging in as admin or root:

Using keyboard-interactive authentication.
You are required to change your password immediately (password aged)
********** WARNING **********
Password complexity minimum requirements
- at least 2 upper case characters
- at least 2 lower case characters
- at least 2 numerical characters
- at least 2 special characters (i.e. !@#.,)
- at least 14 characters in length
Changing password for admin.
(current) UNIX password:
 

Checking the accounts using the chage -l command shows that the accounts have expired passwords.

For example:

root@avamar:~/#: chage -l admin
Password:
Minimum:        1
Maximum:        60
Warning:        7
Inactive:       35
Last Change:            Feb 25, 2025
Password Expires:       Apr 25, 2025
Password Inactive:      May 30, 2025
Account Expires:        Never
  
root@avamar:~/#: chage -l root
Minimum:        1
Maximum:        60
Warning:        7
Inactive:       -1
Last Change:            Feb 25, 2025
Password Expires:       Apr 25, 2025
Password Inactive:      Never
Account Expires:        Never

Cause

It is likely the Avamar hardening packages have been installed during the upgrade.

This alters the password settings and should be set back after upgrade.

It is likely whoever performed the upgrade did not revert the password settings.

 

Resolution

1. As root, using the chage command, revert the admin and root accounts back so that the passwords never expire:

chage -m 0 -M 99999 -I -1 -E -1 <user>
 

For example:

chage -m 0 -M 99999 -I -1 -E -1 admin
Aging information changed.
  
chage -m 0 -M 99999 -I -1 -E -1 root
Aging information changed.
 

2. Verify that Check that the accounts now have "Password Expires" as Never:

root@avamar:~/#: chage -l admin
Password:
Minimum:        1
Maximum:        60
Warning:        7
Inactive:       35
Last Change:            Feb 25, 2025
Password Expires:       Never
Password Inactive:      Never
Account Expires:        Never
  
root@avamar:~/#: chage -l root
Minimum:        1
Maximum:        60
Warning:        7
Inactive:       -1
Last Change:            Feb 25, 2025
Password Expires:       Never
Password Inactive:      Never
Account Expires:        Never

 

Affected Products

Avamar

Products

Avamar, Avamar Server
Article Properties
Article Number: 000163624
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 01 Oct 2025
Version:  5
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