This, combined with default adduser not putting in a default shell when none is specified caused me much hair pulling - I didn't think passwd would be at fault when I could login locally. Please add pam_shell.so to the requirements. Also preferably make super adduser the default gentoo adduser?
Please update to sys-apps/shadow-4.0.3-r3, as its fixed there: ------------------------------------------------- nosferatu xfree-4.2.1-r3 # adduser test nosferatu xfree-4.2.1-r3 # grep test /etc/passwd test:x:1000:100::/home/test:/bin/bash nosferatu xfree-4.2.1-r3 #