su issues

From: Eric Jackson (jacksone_at_seas.upenn.edu)
Date: 11/06/03 

Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 17:11:03 -0500

I have a serious problem: I cannot su - to another user (It fails to even
prompt me to type a password and automatically jumps to reporting it as
incorrect).

Whenever I want to switch to another user I have get the following:

EXAMPLE USER TO ROOT FAILURE:
    [user1@fileserver ~]$ su -
    su: incorrect password
    [user1@fileserver ~]$ su root
    su: incorrect password

EXAMPLE ROOT TO USER FAILURE:
    [root@fileserver root]# su - user1
    su: incorrect password

As you can see it reports an incorrect password without even prompting me
type in a password.

The behavior is identical from multiple remote clients and from the box
itself. I can login as root or any user without problems, I just cannot
switch between users.

I am behind a firewall and I have run check-sums on various commands and
shells and they all come out fine, so I do not believe the box has been
hacked.

I was would love to know your thoughts/theories. Below are some details on
this box

1). It is Red Hat 8
2). It is being used as a SAMBA and WINBIND file server and is a member of
a Win2K domain (Using samba.org package, not Red Hat provided package).
3). It is using the following kernel: 2.4.19-SGI_XFS_1.2.0

I can provide additional information upon request.

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