Can not start SAM anymore

[Stephane Vinsot]

Hello,

I don't know what i did, and if i've done something wrong, but SAM soesn't want to start anymore.

When i try to start it, i receive a error message :"Sorry, you must have superuser (root) privilege to entre SAM."
But i AM root:
"xxx:/tmp> id
uid=0(root) gid=3(sys) groups=0(root),1 (other),2(bin),4(adm),5(daemon),6(mail),7
(lp),20(users),24(ism),30(nsgroup)"

Thanks for the help.

[Patrick Wallek]

Do you have any old sam processes running or is sam open by someone else? What are the permissions on /usr/sbin/sam? Mine is

-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 7219 Jun 7 1996 /usr/sbin/sam (I am on 10.20).

Have you installed any patches recently?

Do a 'which sam' and see which sam you are running. It should be /usr/sbin/sam. Do you any custom scripts that call sam that would switch you to a different user? Also, try doing an 'id -nu' and see what it returns. It should return root. This is what sam uses to determine what user you are logged in as.

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi Stephane,

Did you add another user with uid 0 in the passwd file ??
If a user with uid 0 has a /etc/passwd entry before 'root', id -nu will return that username even if you're logged in as root.

Best regards,

Dan

PS: If you have another used with UID 0, keep in mind that this is a major security risk and that it should be avoided.

[Stephane Vinsot]

Hi,

results :

# id -nu
root
# which sam
/usr/sbin/sam
# ls -l /usr/sbin/sam
-r-sr-sr-x 1 bin bin 7248 Oct 27 1997 /usr/sbin/sam
-----------------------
There's no other user with id 0 than root.

i installed a set of patches, but not on sam itself (i don't think so in fact)

The newer i installed are:
PHCO_13809
PHCO_21833
PHCO_22076
PHNE_21433
PHSS_20863
PHSS_21959
PHSS_21982
PHSS_22341


The funny thing is that i have the message "WARNING: YOU ARE SUPERUSER !!" at logon...

Regards,

Stephane

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi,

You should apply the latest superseeding patches as
Patch PHCO_21833 has been superseeded by PHCO_22265
Patch PHCO_22076 has been superseeded by PHCO_22314
Patch PHNE_21433 has been superseeded by PHNE_22086

Latest SAM cumulative patch is PHCO_21267
ftp://ftp.itrc.hp.com/hp-ux_patches/s700_800/11.X/PHCO_21267

Best regards,

Dan

[Darrel Louis · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Did the SAM problem started after the patches were installed?

Did you check if the patches you applied are in a configured state.
- swlist -l fileset -a state

ll /usr/sbin/sam
-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin bin 7219 Jun 7 1996 /usr/sbin/sam
I don?t have the setuid set on my 10.20 system.

Check it on other systems you?ve.

Darrel

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi Stephane,

Darrel is right !! The setuid bit shouldn't be set on /usr/sbin/sam.
If it is set, it forces your uid to 'bin' and that's why sam is complaining because you're not root !

Well seen, Darrel !

Best regards,

Dan

[Stephane Vinsot]

Ok it was the set user id bit.

I really don't know why it was changed...

[Dan Hetzel]

Hi Stephane,

Thanks for the points, but I think that applying the latest SAM cumulative patch would be a good idea anyway.

Check for your superseeded patches, even if they are unrelated to sam.

Dan