hello,
recently installed SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 on an SGI Altix 350,
system has been running since last wednesday, today is monday.

This morning I used yast to disable a few user accounts, maybe 4 or 5 out of the 15 on the system; I had been logged in as root through a vnc session. The vnc went idle 3 or 4 times and i got a suse screen lock from it but was able to enter the root password and unlock it. I also did a 'su' within an ssh terminal on my pc to reset a general user's password, and then he was able to log in from his computer into the altix. I also tried a few times with 'smbpasswd' from the root account to unlock the same general user's account, and finally succeeded.

I come back from lunch, try to unlock the screensaver in my root vnc session and get password invalid.
From my open SSH terminal to my general user account, I try an 'su' and get password invalid.
And opening a new SSH terminal, to either root or my own general user account, I get password invalid.
And for all other general users, including the one guy I personally reset 2 hours earlier, all get password invalid.

a) What the hell would cause this?

b) Could an option with 'smbpasswd' logged in as root somehow disable all user accounts?

c) Is YAST buggy? I had done a 'pwunconv' a few days previous so I could read the /etc/passwd fiile, and when I had used yast this morning it gave me an error when trying to write files, but exited cleanly. I then did a 'pwconv' and then went back through yast to modify some users and it wrote the passwd/shadow files no problem.

d) having what seems to be all accounts including root locked out, (and nobody can log in! ) what's the best way to fix the problem? i understand booting from the SLES 10 dvd in rescue mode but have an issue with console output, need 'console=ttyg0' or something and until i figure that out i can't really boot in rescue mode from the dvd... don't have an actual terminal off the altix, have to log in to the L2 terminal with a telnet session and output to the screen is very tempermental.
I did try booting from the EFI shell, using ELILO and booted the kernel from fs0:\efi\sgi (primary hard disk) with the boot option 'init=/bin/bash' and it tries booting but ends with a "kernal panic" error of all things!!! It boots to some funky kbd prompt, and it isn't a bash shell and the mount or passwd commands do not work. please help, i think i'd be ok if i could just reset the damn root passwd.

well i got the stupid thing fixed,
was able to boot in linux single user mode, using init=/bin/bash
and the 'passwd' command allowed me to change the root password (without prompting for old password).
then I could log in normally, as root, and fix all the accounts.

the really wierd thing, every account in /etc/passwd was locked !!!
but, it only shows up as 'LK' if I did a 'passwd -Sa'.
if i edited /etc/passwd there was an 'x' in the password field, and looking at
/etc/shadow everyone has, and continues to have, a long string of characters for a password.
If the account was locked, wouldn't there be a '!' in the password field in /etc/shadow?

I can go in yast2 and do user management and the 'disable login' is not checked for anybody!

If i do a 'passwd -U' to unlock a user's password, it gives an error and says password cannot be unlocked.

I had to do, as root, 'passwd <userid>' and manually reset everyone's password to unlock the account.
Anybody know what is going on?

I also did a 'pam_tally' and it reports nothing. After cleanly installing SLES 10, I don't remember seeing anything PAM related. Is it automatically installed, or inherent, in SLES 10?

will be asking this question in linux general.


in case someone needs it, the way I booted was:

- at the boot prompt, hit a key before it times out and auto boots, and boot to EFI shell (built in).
- type: 'fs0:' this is boot drive for me
- type: 'cd efi'
- type: 'cd suse' ...could probably go into the sgi directory also.
- type: 'elilo' and then hit tab immediately afterwards to see bootable kernels. Under the suse directory
it listed 'linux' and 'failsafe'. If it was under the sgi directory, it would probably be something more
specific. I believe either directory would work, but i went with the suse directory.
- at the elilo boot promt, type: 'linux single init=/bin/bash console=ttySG0 vnc=1'
for sgi directory i'm sure it would be something like:
'2.4.21-sgi305r1 single console=ttySG0 init=/bin/bash vnc=1'

this successfully booted me to a prompt, as root, where i could simply do 'passwd' and set the root
password. The console=ttySG0 is important for me because I need to use a telnet session into the machine
since it has no graphics card nor monitor hooked up to it; I go through the L2 over ethernet and have a
usb to ethernet adapter coming off L2 usb port and static ip already set for the L2. Whoever wrote
"welcome to linux have fun" should be shot.

Dear sir,
I suspect some foul play with the original problem although how to replace your root password is inte esting.' Linux for dummies' has a solution but I don' trust it.

i used this bu it also didnot worked why is that?there is a massege end of that show # but cant write any thing in the screen.plz help me to log as root in to my school compiters