The "nobody" account is normally present in mandrake/redhat distributions. This account is ofen used by services and daemons (e.g. mysql, apache httpd) running on your machine. The account has no rights or privledges, so if someone was to attack your machine and exploit a service they shouldn't be able to get very far because the service they attack has no rights on the system because it is operating under the nobody account which has no rights....if you get what i mean.
I dont understand why you cant log in as root. Are you logging in at the console or are you trying to telnet (or remotely connect) to the machine? when you installed/upgraded mandrake, did you change any security settings during setup? i know mandrake and redhat have some tight security features. also, this might be jumping the gun a little bit, but have a look for a file called /etc/securetty it should look similar to this.... # Mandrake-Security : if you remove this comment, remove the next line too. tty1 # Mandrake-Security : if you remove this comment, remove the next line too. tty2 # Mandrake-Security : if you remove this comment, remove the next line too. tty3 # Mandrake-Security : if you remove this comment, remove the next line too. tty4 notice the tty1, tty2, tty3, tty4.....make sure they aren't commented out with a hash (#), make sure the file isn't blank. hope i was of some help. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Russell Davie Sent: Tuesday, 30 July 2002 12:22 AM To: Sydney Linux Users Group Subject: [SLUG] upgrading mandrake Hi I had a go at updating my box from mdk 7.2 to 8.2 over the WE, but things have gone horribly wobbly. the X server is not starting up after shutting down last night, and before I quit I've noticed a new user on the system called 'nobody'.... I can't log in as root, and can only log in as su after I first log in as a user, maybe I've been hacked when upgrading rpm while downloading? may I get a copy of mandrake cds so this mess can be cleaned up? I'm happy to send blanks with return postage -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
