Very Computer

now there is a strange problem:

i recently updated my suse6.0 to 6.2 (switched kernel 2.0.36 to 2.2.10).
as far as i have found out there has also been done a change in user
authentification. PAM is now (heavily (?)) used by login etc.

system activities seemed to be normal after the update... so far so
good...

but then: i tried to delete a user (due to misspelling of her name).
afterwards i tried to create a new user.
i typed:

useradd cc002 (for example)

and checked /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow in which obviously correct
entries have been made like:

passwd:

cc002:x:601:100::/home/cc002:/bin/bash

shadow:

cc002:!:10849:0:99999:7:0::cc002:!:10849:0:99999:7:0::

ok. now i checked on /home/cc002

ls -l /home/cc002

drwxr-xr-x   6 601  users        1024 Apr 27 14:30 cc002

"hmm.." i thought "now where is the mapping from uid 601 to "cc002"??

i tried to change passwd of cc002 which revealed that a user named cc002
does not exist.

passwd cc002
passwd: Unknown user cc002

a follow up removal ended like:

userdel cc002
userdel: user cc002 does not exist

finally i tried to delete the old (already deleted(!)) user, whiches
produced:

userdel <old-user>

userdel: error deleting password entry
userdel: error deleting shadow password entry    

i am absolutely riddled. there seems to be no reference to the old
user-name (which was claimed to be deleted via yast) but userdel does
NOT complain about its non-existence but on errors on removal from
passwd and shadow (which is obvious, because there is NO line whether in
passwd nor in shadow containing the old user name).

ANY HINT/HELP IS ABSOLUTELY WELCOME!!

thanks in advance,

ingo.

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