Red Hat Linux Getting Started Guide 8.0.93 Page 126 (14.9. Password Maintenance) Note that changing a password is very different from having forgotten the password and setting a new one: When setting a new password, "passwd" is enough (in fact you can't specify a username unless you're root). If you have forgotten a password, you have to run "passwd username" as root. You only specify "passwd username" (and don't mention that you've to be root to use it) but not "passwd".
As this is bug is quite old yet still applicable to the new version of the Getting Started Guide (now called the "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Step-by-Step Guide"), I am assigning this over to the new maintainer of this manual. Melissa, the bug report applies to 12.9 "Password Maintenance" in the Step-by-Step Guide. Perhaps we need to split up the separate processes ("I forgot" vs. "I just want to change") as the reporter suggested?
I'm editing Chapter 14 now, and will split Password Maintenance into 'Changing Your Password' and 'Retrieving a Forgotten Password.'