Re: su doesn't work "Authentication failure"



paul wrote:
Hello,

on my debian etch machine 'su' doesn't work if a password is needed.
It is possible to do 'su someuser' from root but it's not possible to
get back to root then using just 'su' or change from a normal user to
another user account.


myserver:/tmp$ su
Password:
su: Authentication failure
Sorry.

auth.log says:
Jan 31 15:44:18 myserver su[27729]: (pam_unix) authentication failure;
logname= uid=1000 euid=1000 tty=pts/4 ruser=myuser rhost= user=root
Jan 31 15:44:20 myserver su[27729]: pam_authenticate: Authentication
failure
Jan 31 15:44:20 myserver su[27729]: FAILED su for root by myuser
Jan 31 15:44:20 myserver su[27729]: - pts/4 myuser:root

I suspect sth. in with the pam module got broken.

Any suggestions how to go on?

thx, paul


Paul,

I had the same issue. I fixed it by doing two things:

1. I used sudo to su to root "sudo su"
2. As I had a BadCRC reported on a HD, I had to re-configure my hardware setup and re-install.

The first is a bandaide. The 2nd is a shotgun to kill a bug. Both worked. The source was never found.

HTH

--
Damon L. Chesser
damon@xxxxxxxxxx



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