topic Re: problem with su in Operating System - Linux

problem with su

mjsunil — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 06:39:57 GMT

Hi,
Iam not able to su to root from one user whereas Iam able to su from another user. Has anybody come across this kind of problem. We havent made any configuration changes. It was working properly earlier.

rgds-mjs

Re: problem with su

Steven E. Protter — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 06:55:17 GMT

Check permissions on su

make sure they aare this:
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 47522 Aug 12 2003 /bin/su

the /etc/securetty file may have become trashed in some way or may have been set to block su.

Not if a hacker had your box the first thing he/she might do is disable your ability to log on as root an nail he/she.

check for space on root fs and /var du -h

SEP

Re: problem with su

Stuart Browne — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 06:55:57 GMT

Have you verified the root password by logging in on the console?

Re: problem with su

Roberto Polli — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 07:19:25 GMT

did you check log files looking for an error?
search in /var/log and report error here.
Peace, R>

Re: problem with su

Kiyoshi Miyake — Tue, 27 Apr 2004 23:16:26 GMT

perhaps pam.
did you change /etc/pam.conf or /etc/pam.d/* ?

or you use *BSD?
so, only wheel group member can su to root.

Re: problem with su

mjsunil — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 00:27:17 GMT

Hi,
I have checked the /etc/pam.d/su and i havent enabled the wheel group and pam.wheel.so. The permission is correct for su and root has permission in /etc/securetty.We have space in /var. In /var/log/messages. we are able to su to root with only one user. I tried to create new users and even they r not able to su to root
rgds-mjs

Re: problem with su

Vitaly Karasik_1 — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 00:39:06 GMT

Can you please copy/paste error passage you receive when you try "su -" ?

Re: problem with su

Stuart Browne — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 00:46:22 GMT

Also paste the contents of '/etc/pam.d/su'.

Re: problem with su

Marco van den Hout — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 01:43:57 GMT

just in case, check 'which su' to see where the binary is taken from.

Re: problem with su

Robert Binkhorst — Wed, 28 Apr 2004 04:26:40 GMT

Hi,

Do you have sudo installed? try visudoers..

HTH,

Robert

Re: problem with su

mjsunil — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:08:56 GMT

Hi,
When I su i get su: incorrect password and I sure that the /etc/pam.d/su is the default file created during installation. I dont have sudo installed.
rgds-mjs

Re: problem with su

mjsunil — Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:19:20 GMT

Hi,
I have checked the /etc/pam.d/su file and found that use_sid was unchecked.Thks for all your help
rgds-mjs

Re: problem with su

Overbey — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 10:26:12 GMT

you had stated that the /etc/pam.d/su had a uncheck field -- please explain.
I have the same problem and can not figure it out.
Thanks
doverbey

Re: problem with su

t35t0r — Mon, 28 May 2007 13:23:55 GMT

Yes. For us it was really our stupidity since we forgot to modify the /etc/pam.d/access.conf file. If this file (or a similar file) is referenced from /etc/pam.d/system-auth:

account required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_access.so accessfile=/etc/security/access.conf

then make sure that file is properly allowing access for the user in question. We had put the new user in a new group but had forgotten to give that group access to login to the machine by modifying the access.conf file.