Strange and vexing problems with the 'su' command; other issues
Hello board. I've posting a lot of questions recently... My latest problem has to do with the 'su' command. After I issue 'su' (with or without a user name), the computer pauses for a few seconds and, WITHOUT PROMPTING FOR A PASSWORD, it gives me 'su: incorrect password' error message! This appears to be a wiedespread problem. Everything that depends on su (e.g. YAST) fails because of that. Last night, in a desperate attempt to figure out why my SAMBA was not working, I unistalled the SAMBA packages and tried re-istalling them from the apt-get repositories. I got all kinds of errors, like size mismatches and bad cpio. (Are the packagers that careless? I updated all the rpm keys, but just about EVERY SAMBA-related package I tried to istall from apt-get gave me errors!) So, now my SAMBA is broken. I am not sure whether these two problems are related. I am running SuSE 10 and I have upgraded the kernel to the "SuSEfied" 2.6.14-3. Everything worked fine after my kernel upgrade, so I doubt my problems are due to the kernel upgrade. Why would broken SAMBA packages affect 'su'? I think I have two independent problems. To compound the problem, I managed to roll my chair over my SuSE 10 DVD, for which I paid US$50; I did not physically break it, but the streaks apparently rendered it useless! Besides shelling out another US$50 and waiting for long downloads, do I have any other options? I still have my SuSE 9.3 DVDs. I guess when it rains, it pours! TIA for any help you can offer. CF
On Monday 05 December 2005 05:09, Constantine 'Gus' Fantanas wrote:
Hello board.
I've posting a lot of questions recently...
My latest problem has to do with the 'su' command. After I issue 'su' (with or without a user name), the computer pauses for a few seconds and, WITHOUT PROMPTING FOR A PASSWORD, it gives me 'su: incorrect password' error message! This appears to be a wiedespread problem. Everything that depends on su (e.g. YAST) fails because of that.
Did you change your security level in YaST? If you set the level to 'Paranoid', many things, including su, will fail Then again even with a higher security level, it should still prompt you for a password, so perhaps this isn't it. Did you change something in pam perhaps? /etc/pam.d/su controls how pam asks for password, and if that file is messed up, it could have strange effects
Last night, in a desperate attempt to figure out why my SAMBA was not working, I unistalled the SAMBA packages and tried re-istalling them from the apt-get repositories. I got all kinds of errors, like size mismatches and bad cpio. (Are the packagers that careless? I updated all the rpm keys, but just about EVERY SAMBA-related package I tried to istall from apt-get gave me errors!) So, now my SAMBA is broken. I am not sure whether these two problems are related.
What is an apt-get repository? You might consider being more careful about where you get your software from, if you have doubts about the quality of the packages. SUSE does not maintain an apt-get repository
participants (2)
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Anders Johansson -
Constantine 'Gus' Fantanas