On Mon, Sep 18, 2000 at 12:51:30PM -0400, John Aldrich wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Sep 2000, Kraszewski, Marcin wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Really strange situation: I can log on as root at the console (RH6.0, kernel
> > 2.2.16-3), but if I log on as a regular user, and then try to run 'su -',
> > after I enter the root password I get "su: incorrect password" error
> > message. I changed the root password a few times, checked the caps lock :)
> > but it still does not work. I read man pages for passwd, shadow, and su, but
> > could not see any clues. I also checked several configuration files, and
> > they haven't been changed in months, 'su -' worked on that machine before. I
> > would really appreciate your hints on what to check next. TIA.
> Make sure you have permission to execute the "su" command. I know on
> at least one machine here, only root can run the "su" command.
That would have gotten him "permission denied" when he tried
to run it. That would come from the shell when it tried to exec a
binary with incorrect permissions. Getting the generic "incorrect
password" means that su actually did run but the user failed authentication.
Security principles mandate that the error message on authentication
failure be uniform so as not to provide an attacker with information
about what failed. He failed a test posed by PAM. It could be a bad
password, it could be wheel group failure, it could be something else.
> John
Mike
--
Michael H. Warfield | (770) 985-6132 | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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