login problems

[Duane Attaway]

On Sun, 3 Nov 2002, Dale Herring wrote:

> Anyone had a problem where the system will boot up okay, but you are
> unable to login? Basically system boots fine. No errors. in multiuser
> mode or single user mode. Gets to a login prompt. When entering the
> login the system will act like it is searching then go right back to a
> login prompt. No password prompt or anything else.

This problem seems to me like it may be related to how the authentication
process is configured in your setup.  It might even be a clash with the
current hostname not having permissions for the console.

Your boot sequence has no problems has no problems launching the kernel, 
which has no problems starting the init process, which launches the agetty 
terminals you see.  Now, this is where the authenication process starts.  
agetty calls /bin/login, and it all depends on how security is installed, 
such as PAM, or how your password files are set...

If you want to trace it down, the login man page is a good place to start.  
I'd check your /etc/passwd and /etc/group files are readable by everyone
and writable by root.  The shadow files of those should not be readable by
anyone, except for root.  Check to make sure their contents are somewhat 
valid.

The reinstall approach would be the the packages for pam, login, agetty,
and such.