How users are able to change their passwords even though they don't have permissions to edit /etc/shadow file ?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • The permissions of /etc/shadow file in RHEL5 are 400(r--------) and in RHEL6/RHEL7 they are 000(---------). This implies that no one have the write access to shadow file. Then how are the users able to change their passwords which are saved in /etc/shadow file ?

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

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