Can't remote login from HP to Linux.

[Kenny Chau]

Hi all,

I am new to Linux. Maybe this question is quite simple to you all.

I had installed RH7.2 server version. I had tried to do a remote login (root account) or remote shell from HP-UX to Linux but failed. I had comment the line of "#auth required /lib/security/pam_securetty.so" from files login, rlogin and rexec but when I do a remsh linux from the HP-UX, it prompts me for password. I had modified that I can login root from telnet in Linux. May I know what files I had missed out that gives me this result?
Before I comment those lines, it prompts me twice for password. But after I comment those lines, it prompt me once for password.

The other way round, I can rsh from Linux to HP-UX by root account.

Thanks in advance.
Kenny.

[I_M]

Hi,

To do pam related troubleshoot,
I advice you to add "debug" option after pam.securetty.so.
Then you will be able to see error message in your /var/log/messages.

Good luck

[Kenny Chau]

Thanks for your reply, but how can I enable the debug mode in this situation?

Thanks again.
Kenny.

[MiQUET Pascal]

You should notice that the root login normaly is not allowed. I'd suggest to use ssh.

Another solution is to login (rlogin or telnet) as a regular user and then "su - root" to get the root privileges.

HTH

[Kenny Chau]

Well, I know I can su to root from other users, but I need to remote copy some root priviledge files and directories from HP-UX to Linux. I know I can do the other way round, but there are several people know the Linux root password but not the HP-UX root password. So I need to restrict rsh from Linux to HP-UX but not HP-UX to Linux.
Any idea to solve this problem?

Thanks.
Kenny.

[Hal Rottenberg]

If all you want to do is remote copy and you are having password issues--then don't use passwords. Use SSH and create a key for this purpose. You can create the key without a password, although that is a security risk. If you protect the access to the key it's probably less of a security risk than using the old r* commands...

[Hal Rottenberg]

I forgot to mention one more thing. Check out scp(1).

[Robert R. Colp]

Kenny-
I can tell you have the services active on the linux box or you would not get as far as you did. The magic file you are looking for is /root/.rhosts on the linux box. The file structure is a list of the system names that are permitted to access your system. I recommend using the full name of the system you want to allow access from. ie- if the name of a system is: "xyzsys.mydomain.com" use that name in the file not the alias of "xyzsys". My .rhosts file has both names. You may also need to create the file as /etc/hosts.equiv for some file transfers as a user account other than root, but this should put you on the right path.

Try man hosts.equiv

[Kenny Chau]

Hal, I know I can use SSH, but this is a testing machine and we don't want to buy any SSH license and install to this linux.
Robert, I think you may right, but I am not sure how to find a full name of my HP-UX server and from the configuration file, I can only find the hostname. So any clue to this?

Thanks.
Kenny.

[S. Kaysersberg]

Hey Kenny,

you can use openssh, its under the GPL (no cost ...) www.openssh.org

To get your hostname. just type #hostname

Greetz
Kayse

[Angus Crome · Accepted solution]

Have you turned on rsh and rlogin in xinetd?
If not, you are not going to get in. I believe the files you want are in /etc/xinetd.d

You should make sure that the configs for rlogin and/or rsh (whichever you use) are set with disable=no

Even though it says default on in the comment under Red Hat 7.2 (my default installation had them set as disable=yes).

You will still need the hosts.equiv or .rhosts files to do it without password though (and of course this is not recommended for security reasons).

[Kenny Chau]

Thanks Angus, you are right, I had missed the file rsh in the /etc/xinetd.d. Thanks for reminding me.

Regards,
Kenny.

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Kenny,

something more that can cause an error:

/etc/securetty

this file has to be renamed/removed to get this to work.

/etc/xinetd.d -->vi the desired service, change disable="yes" to "no"

--> restart xinetd

That should do it for you.

Allways stay on the brigth side of life!

Peter