rlogin

[Thiyagarajan.s]

How is this rlogin is working
I have seen this is working without hosts.eqiv on destination
I have similar user accounts on HPUX system with the same id and gid when doing rlogin asking passwd
It is working for some other user accounts in these system
and what is the role and precedence of .rhosts file when exists wiht /etc/hosts.eqiv

Thanks in Advance!

[Bharat Katkar · Accepted solution]

Hi,
.rhosts overrides /etc/host.equiv configuration.
.rhosts resides in users home directory and is owned by that users.
For superuser (root) /etc/hosts.equiv is ignored, .rhosts only works.

For more information see man rhosts.

Hope that helps.
Regards,

[Steven E. Protter]

Check the following:

1) network connectivity
2) .rhosts file
3) /etc/hosts.equiv file

Any of the above can cause rlogin to fail.

hosts.equiv overrides the .rhosts files. It is generally used to lock down security even if rhosts is set correctly.

Have you considered doing this with secure shell?

SEP

[Pete Randall]

The hosts.equiv file grants system-wide access while the .rhosts file, because it is located in a particular user's home directory, grants individual access. If I recall correctly, hosts.equiv does not work for root - root access requires a .rhosts file.


Pete

[A. Clay Stephenson]

The authenication is explained very well in the hosts.equiv man pages. Man 4 hosts.equiv (it also covers .rhosts). Only if a matching entry is not found in /etc/hosts.equiv does the user's .rhost file come into play.

[Bill Hassell]

Note also that even when .rhosts exists and is correctly formatted, .rhosts must be 400 or 600 permissions, in the $HOME directory of the owner and owned by that user. And most important, the remote system's IP address must be resolvable by the local system. All these rules must be satisified or rlogind will ask for a password.

[KapilRaj]

Thiyagarajan,
Why not reward them with some points ?.
....... Kaps

[Thiyagarajan.s]

I will make my question more clear,there is a host.eqiv file and there are no .rhosts file in each user profile except in /.rhosts file.
the rlogin is working well except for a single user

[Con O'Kelly]

Hi

The hosts.equiv file is always checked first for authorisation.
If the hosts.equiv file has an entry for a remote host then all users on that remote host should be able to rlogin without a password. However if there is also an entry in hosts.equiv for a specific user, then that user won't be able to login:
Example:
+ -


Can you explain your rlogin problem in more detail ie what entries are in hosts.equiv and which user is failing.

Also check /var/adm/inetd.sec for any entries that may deny rlogin access from specific IP addresses/hosts.

Cheers
Con

[Bill Hassell]

Having .rhosts in / means that you have root's HOME in / (not a good idea). Nevertheless, a correctly formatted .rhosts with the correct permissions and ownership root's HOME directory will allow root to accept an rlogin, remsh or rcp. /.rhosts has nothing to do with any other users except root.

Since other users cannot use rlogin without giving a password, your host.equiv file is incorrect. There will be no error message telling you what to fix. You have to change the permissions and ownership to 600 and ownership must be root. For testing, you can wipe out everything in hosts.equiv and just put a single + in that file. Now, any computer can use rlogin to this machine. Otherwise, you need a machine name and optionally, a username to restrict access.

NOTE: A single + is a very severe security risk so do not leave your host.equiv file with just a +.