root login at the console

[Chrisl_2]

hpux 11.00 trusted system

Can I configure the system above for direct login of root at the console? Currently, I have to su. Of course I would like to keep the current config of su from every other location in doing so. TIA.

[Jeff_Traigle]

/etc/securetty is the ticket. Enter "console" in that file and root will be allowed login via the console. See login(1) for reference.

[HGN]

Hi

Add the entry console in /etc/securetty
# cat /etc/securetty
console

Rgds

HGN

[Chrisl_2]

yeah, that's what I read, but I already have console in /etc/securetty. Does it have to be upper case or something? Does the file need some kind of format or structure? Permissions on the file are -rw-rw-r--.

[Paul Sperry]

here's what I have.

# more /etc/securetty
console
# ll /etc/securetty
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 8 Nov 18 2002 /etc/securetty

[Paul Sperry]

If this is a trusted system, and if you would have tried the wrong password, the root account may be disabled. To enable it again

/usr/lbin/modprpw -k root

Also does the root password have any special charaters in it? (#,@ etc)

[Chrisl_2]

The root account is not disabled. We do, however, have several special characters in it.

[Paul Sperry · Accepted solution]

There's the problem, certain characters cannot be used at the console I know @ and # can't be used but not sure of the others

[Paul Sperry]

Just realized this is your first post.
Welcome to the forms.
Check out this post for more info about
special characters at the console.

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=998783

[Chrisl_2]

If the issue was special characters in root password, wouldn't they still be an issue when you su? (I'm too new here to change the root password, and test it :)). And thanks for the greeting!

[Patrick Wallek]

Not necessarily, no.

The issue with special characters is that some of them have special meaning to the console PRIOR to login. BUT once you are logged in, your stty settings take effect and the effect those characters would have on the terminal will change.

It is really best to avoid some characters, especially the @ sign, in HP-UX passwords.

[Chrisl_2]

Ok, so it seems that the @ and # characters in the root passwd is the reason that I cannot login on the console. Thx for all the great answers.

[Tom Henning]

One more comment: from the manual page on passwd:

Avoid password characters which have special meaning to the tty
driver, such as # (erase) and @ (kill). You may not be able to login
with these characters.

By tradition, going back to when you logged in on a teletype, the '@' and '#' characters had special meanings. When you set the password in a terminal window, those character have been reset to something more useful on a modern terminal, but when you login they do bad things.

[Kent Ostby]

Of course, whoever originally put the special characters into the root password may have done so just so no one could log on directly as root :-)

We had one system that we had that setup on a few years back.

[Chrisl_2]

The @ or # characters in the root password caused this condition. Thx to all. Chris