Console login won't go away!

[AnitaM]

Hello everyone.

After a scheduled power outage I cannot gain access to my console, either directly or remotely for our A500, ver.B.11.11.

I get a 'Console login:' prompt that pauses when I put in a valid root user login but eventually comes right back to the 'Console login:' prompt again. If I put an invalid login or password I get an appropriate and quick response.

I have rebooted in single user mode and reset the root users password; reset the GSP hardware button and reset all users passwords; used the stty +resetGSP
The console entry in /etc/gettydefs is:
console # B9600 SANE CLOCAL CS8 ISTRIP IXANY TAB3 HUPCL
# B9600 SANE CLOCAL CS8 ISTRIP IXANY TAB3 HUPCL
#Console Login: #console

I don't have any errors in syslog.log.

I'm on a trusted system.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[Rita C Workman]

Is it possible that before the reboot, while you logged in as root file permissions got changed somehow on 'system' mountpoints ?
Like someone did a chown -R whatever:whatever /* or chmod -R 666 /* (hmmm...sorry, but that would be the right number to hose up things like this)

See if you can reboot and interupt the boot and get in and just try mounting /usr. Take a look around and see if the owner & permissions look ok.
/usr is 555 bin:bin
Now files under /usr/bin have different permissions and are owned by bin:bin and others by root:sys
Then maybe another mountpoint like /var and so on....

Just a thought,
Rita

[AnitaM]

The /usr rights and ownership are correct, and I can get connected through an ssh login.
Could this be a rights issue? I have the HP-UX Security white papers and can check the rights as that is a possibility.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

if I had to guess on this sparse information (which I am doing by virtue of posting), I would look at this:

root fs full
/etc/passwd
/etc/group

or other security files have been hammered and one or more of them are at zero bytes.

See /etc/inittab as well.

SEP

[AnitaM]

/root isn't full, but there isn't allot of space avail.
/dev/vg00/lvol7 122880 99268 22144 82% /root

All of my volume sets have space available.

Are these the correct rights and ownership for these? The white papers don't have anything specific other than they shouldn't be writable by anyone other than root.
# ll passwd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 2738 Aug 27 19:43 passwd
# ll group
-r--r--r-- 1 bin bin 450 Aug 27 19:43 group
# ll inittab
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root sys 1855 Dec 15 2006 inittab

thank you,
anita

[Rita C Workman]

Just did a quick look on my workstation.

passwd - no- I show r-r-r
group - yes
inittab - no- I show r-r-r

/rcw

[AnitaM]

Do we have the same ownership?

Thanks,
Anita

[AnitaM]

My most sincerest thank you to all you who provideded me with input on this problem.

I ended up tracking the solution to a missing /tcb/files/ttys file. Luckily we have two systems and I was able to set the file back up on this system and all is well now.

Thank you for all of you input.

Anita

[AnitaM]

It was a missing /tcb/files/ttys file. Recreating the file fixed the problem.

I love this forum!