I have a Fedora 7 machine, and suddenly only root can login from the console (either through the gui, or through any of the four virtual consoles). All users (root and others) can login just fine via ssh, and root can su to anyone on the console (that is, login as root on the console, and then you can su to anyone). Other machines (we have 23 others) that are set up the same are working correctly.

The only error I can find is that when I try to login as a non-root user on one of the virtual consoles, /var/log/secure gets

login: FAILED LOGIN 1 FROM (null) FOR <username>, Authentication failure

but there's nothing to say *why* the authentication failed. We use NIS, but since it works when one logs in via ssh, it isn't an NIS problem.

If I create an /etc/nologin (there isn't one already), I do NOT see the message when I try to login on the console, which means (I think) that it's something that happens before it checks for /etc/nologin.

I was really thinking it was a permissions problem or a corrupt cache or something (since it's only this one machine), but I can't come up with anything, and I can't figure out how to get more info into the log which would point me in the right direction.

Does anyone have any idea of where to look?

Thanks!

fedora 7 is no longer supported and has NOT been supported sense June 2008

PLEASE install the current fedora 12

are you saying you have 24 fedora 7 installs ??
NONE of these have had a SECURITY update in 2 years

PLEASE install a SUPPORTED os on these 24 computers ASAP !!!!!!

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Another data point:

If I do a last on /var/log/btmp right after I attempt to login on the console as a non-root user, it says that the user is "still logged in" for what seems like about a minute, then it changes to "gone, no logout". This despite the fact that the user just gets a "login incorrect" error and a new login prompt.

Thanks!

Yet more information that I still have been able to piece together into a solution:

Any local account can login, as can any account for which authentication is obtained from the LDAP server; the only accounts having problems are the ones that are authenticated from the NIS server.

What's weird is that NIS seems to be working; yptest passes all the tests, I can ypcat anything, plus the home directories get automounted, and that uses auto.* maps from the NIS server. Plus, since you can login remotely (not at the console), that proves NIS authentication is working.

So, it seems that NIS authentication is not working only when you try to login to the console, and only on this one machine. Interestingly, I had thrown up my hands earlier today and re-imaged the machine, and it worked *once*, and then hasn't worked since, so I am really confused.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

on fedora 7 NO
fedora changed the network manager in fedora 8
and that would have changed nis

please install a LONG life distro like rhel5.4 or centOS 5.4
they have a 5 year life
VS fedora's 13 month life
or the current fedora 12 . then i 1 month fedora 13 .then in 6 moonths fedora 14 . then 6 months after that fedora 15 .And so on EVERY 6 MONTHS