I am running mandrake 10.1 with KDE 3.2.2. I don't know why this happened, but the "su" command just stopped working. I get the response:

su: cannot set groups: Operation not permitted

I can log into root initially, and then "su bob" and get into bob, but it will not let me back into root. Also, i can only get into other accounts if i am starting from root.

I think the problem might be a problem with the password recognition, since even if i create an account with a null password su will ask for one and then give me the same denial unless i am attempting to su as root.

Anybody know what is going on here?

I believe you have to be in the wheel group in order to su. You can use the groups command to see whether or not your in it.

Jeremy

Also verify that the SUID bit is set for su with ls -l /bin/su

it says
-rwxrwxs-x 1 root root 20408 JUL 25 12:12 /bin/su*

which, if i am not mistaken, means user can read, write, and execute; group can read, write, and execute, others can execute.

Is this what i want to see?

SUID needs to be set so it can run with root privileges for ordinary users like this:

-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 52770 Oct 5 18:50 su

Set the SUID bit with

chmod u+s /bin/su

and try again

thanks, dude

that took care of it