Problem logging in as root

Problem logging in as root

[Cheryl Homiak]

I apologize for the garbled message sent previously. I was typing on 
freedombox with key echo on and had awl sorts of transpositions and 
missing spaces. Tried to do another email and the same thing was 
happening. I have to use freedobox mail because somehow emails to me 
from this list and some others are bouncing on my Charter account. 
Turned off key echo and now everything seems to be fine; don't know if 
it was something in freedobox Key echo, my keyboard, or what. 
Admittedly I didn't spellcheck before sending but my spelling isn't THAT bad!!!

I have a friend who suddenly can not log in as root. She can log in 
with her normal user password or with mine; I  have an account on her 
box and maintain it for her. But logging in as root fails both from the 
console login prompt and with su; she doesn't appear to have sudo. I've 
checked that she's using the correct password and that caps lock is 
off. Does anybody either have an idea what might have caused this or 
how we can solve the problem so she can log in as root? She can't fetch 
packages because she's using root to start her ppp connection. She 
hasn't upgraded for a while so it's not some new package she added 
causing the problem.
Thanks for any help and sorry again about the last post; I checked it 
this time but now i'm paranoid!!!

-- 
Email services by FreedomBox.  Surf the Net at the sound of your voice. 
www.freedombox.info

Re: Problem logging in as root

[Igor Gueths]

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Hash: SHA512

Hi. It sounds as if somehow the root password got changed, or perhaps your friend ran a passwd -l root accidentally. In any case, I'd ls -l /etc/passwd, to see if it was recently modified. To 
reset the root password again, you'll probably have to talk your friend through single-user mode. Or if worst comes to worst, boot a liveCD, chroot to the HD with the system on it, and run 
passwd to reset the password. Hth.
- - Igor
On Sun, May 13, 2007 at 10:00:34PM -0400, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
> I apologize for the garbled message sent previously. I was typing on 
> freedombox with key echo on and had awl sorts of transpositions and 
> missing spaces. Tried to do another email and the same thing was 
> happening. I have to use freedobox mail because somehow emails to me 
> from this list and some others are bouncing on my Charter account. 
> Turned off key echo and now everything seems to be fine; don't know if 
> it was something in freedobox Key echo, my keyboard, or what. 
> Admittedly I didn't spellcheck before sending but my spelling isn't THAT bad!!!
> 
> I have a friend who suddenly can not log in as root. She can log in 
> with her normal user password or with mine; I  have an account on her 
> box and maintain it for her. But logging in as root fails both from the 
> console login prompt and with su; she doesn't appear to have sudo. I've 
> checked that she's using the correct password and that caps lock is 
> off. Does anybody either have an idea what might have caused this or 
> how we can solve the problem so she can log in as root? She can't fetch 
> packages because she's using root to start her ppp connection. She 
> hasn't upgraded for a while so it's not some new package she added 
> causing the problem.
> Thanks for any help and sorry again about the last post; I checked it 
> this time but now i'm paranoid!!!
> 
> -- 
> Email services by FreedomBox.  Surf the Net at the sound of your voice. 
> www.freedombox.info
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> -- 
> This message has been scanned for viruses and
> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
> believed to be clean.
> 
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-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and
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Re: Problem logging in as root

[Chris Norman]

Can you go on a debbian live cd, chroot to the partition where her /
partition would normally be and install / compile sudo? Or do an auto
install or something?

HTH, and I have never had to do this, so sorry if I'm wrong L.

On Sun, 2007-05-13 at 22:00 -0400, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
> I apologize for the garbled message sent previously. I was typing on 
> freedombox with key echo on and had awl sorts of transpositions and 
> missing spaces. Tried to do another email and the same thing was 
> happening. I have to use freedobox mail because somehow emails to me 
> from this list and some others are bouncing on my Charter account. 
> Turned off key echo and now everything seems to be fine; don't know if 
> it was something in freedobox Key echo, my keyboard, or what. 
> Admittedly I didn't spellcheck before sending but my spelling isn't THAT bad!!!
> 
> I have a friend who suddenly can not log in as root. She can log in 
> with her normal user password or with mine; I  have an account on her 
> box and maintain it for her. But logging in as root fails both from the 
> console login prompt and with su; she doesn't appear to have sudo. I've 
> checked that she's using the correct password and that caps lock is 
> off. Does anybody either have an idea what might have caused this or 
> how we can solve the problem so she can log in as root? She can't fetch 
> packages because she's using root to start her ppp connection. She 
> hasn't upgraded for a while so it's not some new package she added 
> causing the problem.
> Thanks for any help and sorry again about the last post; I checked it 
> this time but now i'm paranoid!!!
> 
-- 


Chris Norman.

<!-- cnorman@rnibncw.ac.uk -->

telnet://ptfm.co.uk:4242


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