On Mon October 4 2010 03:46:27 Will Stephenson wrote:

On Monday 04 October 2010 06:59:49 David C. Rankin wrote:

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On 10/03/2010 04:24 PM, Bob Rea wrote:

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then it had trouble starting but finally got to kde login, now won't accept my password. What can I do about that?

Can't upgrade til I have working dvd or cd drive, which was the point of the exercise.

<snipped avoiding display manager with startx advice/>

Bob, (1) can you login as your normal user at a text console?

yes

(2) Can you login as a different user?

root, yes, console and kde

(3) What does the login screen actually say - 'Incorrect password'?

no, I enter my password and it redisplays the login screen

If not (1), can you login as root, and look at the end of /var/log/messages for messages from login. This will tell you why login was rejected, eg:

" Oct 4 09:40:23 bigbox login[3692]: FAILED LOGIN 1 FROM /dev/tty3 FOR will, Authentication failure "

If it's a PAM problem (unlikely in a vanilla setup given that you just changed cabling) it will be logged here. Let us know the relevant log messages and we can try and get to the bottom of what's changed on your system.

I will take a look. but I thought I would lay out answers to your question. not a good log reader somewhere there must be a complete newby's guide to how to read logs and understand what you read -- Bob Rea gapetard@stsams.org www.petard.us -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* John Andersen [10-04-10 20:12]:

On 10/4/2010 4:29 PM, Bob Rea wrote:

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(2) Can you login as a different user? root, yes, console and kde

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(3) What does the login screen actually say - 'Incorrect password'? no, I enter my password and it redisplays the login screen

This almost sounds like you have bin/false as a login shell or something other than bin/bash

Then why could he log in to a text console? -- Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2010-10-04 Patrick offered the following:

* John Andersen [10-04-10 20:12]:

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On 10/4/2010 4:29 PM, Bob Rea wrote:

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...

(2) Can you login as a different user?

root, yes, console and kde

...

...

(3) What does the login screen actually say - 'Incorrect password'?

no, I enter my password and it redisplays the login screen

This almost sounds like you have bin/false as a login shell or something other than bin/bash

Then why could he log in to a text console?

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it looks like he's saying he's logging into a console as ROOT in either kde or a terminal but not as himself...if that is the case, perhaps it is because he is out of disk space in '/' and cleaning up some space on the root device (perhaps by erasing stuff in /tmp) would clear it up???? Richard -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Tuesday 05 Oct 2010 14:29:50 Michael S. Dunsaavage wrote:

On 10/4/2010 8:43 PM, Richard Creighton wrote:

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On 2010-10-04 Patrick offered the following:

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* John Andersen [10-04-10 20:12]:

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On 10/4/2010 4:29 PM, Bob Rea wrote:

...

...

(2) Can you login as a different user?

root, yes, console and kde

...

> (3) What does the login screen actually say - 'Incorrect password'?

no, I enter my password and it redisplays the login screen

This almost sounds like you have bin/false as a login shell or something other than bin/bash

Then why could he log in to a text console?

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it looks like he's saying he's logging into a console as ROOT in either kde or a terminal but not as himself...if that is the case, perhaps it is because he is out of disk space in '/' and cleaning up some space on the root device (perhaps by erasing stuff in /tmp) would clear it up????

Richard

He specifically said he could login as himself @ console. Somehow we failed to quote that part of his email.

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2010-10/msg00140.html

I had this problem on a clients machine, Her son was learning use blender and blender filled tmp directory. I'm with Richard, Go into a console as root and empty the tmp directory That's all I had to do. Cheers GL -- Graham Lauder, OpenOffice.org MarCon (Marketing Contact) NZ http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html OpenOffice.org Migration and training Consultant. INGOTs Assessor Trainer (International Grades in Open Technologies) www.theingots.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Will Stephenson said the following on 10/05/2010 02:01 AM:

Sounds like the X server or KDE crashed on login rather than a password problem.

BTDT a couple of years ago. I can read logs, and /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the log for kdm and were relevant in that they identified X as crashing rather than my login being refused.

This could be due to mismatched KDE libraries, a full disk, or buggy video drivers.

It could, but in my case I had stupidly made a typo in one of the start-up scripts .... ~/.xinitrc ... that aborted the process. I realise that this may not be the case, that the OP may not have edited such, but its also easy enough to wolf-fence. I keep a 'virgin' account to try to log in to when such problems occur. If you can log in as root at the text/console, log in as another unprivileged user at the text/console, then its unlikely to be a PAM problem, and if no messages appear its very unlikely to be something in the regular shell scripts at the system level (/etc/profile.d/*). If you can log in via the GUI as root or the other unprivileged account then it is something specific to that one account. Once you have eliminated those you can proceed to other, less likely, more subtle matters since you have better defined the boundaries of the problem. And yes, you should eliminate the obvious problems first. Even the best of us are fallible, get tired and make typos and finger-slips or let the cat[1] at the keyboard while off making coffee. This may all seem trivial logic and I may seem to be repeating what others have said, but these logic steps, this checklist DOES need to be followed to isolate the problem. You have to be sure what is NOT the problem and not make "logical leap". Some people may find it odd that those of us with years of experience in some matters do not instantly see the problem. Its those years of experience that tell us to proceed step by step and and to the Sherlock Holmes thing: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, *however improbable*, must be the truth?" -- Sherlock Holmes, in "The Sign of the Four" But you have to systematically eliminate the "impossible". To do otherwise is a series of WAGs[2]. Such methods will not endear you to management since they are hard to document and unreliable. The methods, that is, not management. [1] Marcus Ranum, the inventor of the firewall and the security guru, has commented that he has seen corporate firewall setups which he thinks his cat could have done a better job on. [2] Wild Assed Guesses -- Quality is free, but only for those who are willing to pay heavily for it. - Tom Demarco, "Peopleware" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org