Crontab and PAM problems for root on Fedora 8
 

I'm running Fedora 8 x86_64 and everything's up-to-date.

I'm trying to get rsnapshot running via the cron and have placed the following into root's crontab:

0 */4 * * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot hourly
50 23 * * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot daily
40 23 * * 6 /usr/bin/rsnapshot weekly
30 23 1 * * /usr/bin/rsnapshot monthly

None of the jobs are running however.

On checking the logs with:

date; tail /var/log/cron; echo; tail /var/log/secure

I see:

Wed Feb 20 12:04:44 GMT 2008
Feb 20 09:01:01 sirius crond[16522]: CRON (root): failed to open PAM security session: Module is unknown
Feb 20 10:01:01 sirius crond[16633]: CRON (root): failed to open PAM security session: Module is unknown
Feb 20 11:01:01 sirius crond[16738]: CRON (root): failed to open PAM security session: Module is unknown
Feb 20 12:00:01 sirius crond[17098]: CRON (root): failed to open PAM security session: Module is unknown
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: CRON (root): failed to open PAM security session: Module is unknown

Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM adding faulty module: /lib64/security/pam_access.so
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib64/security/pam_limits.so)
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM [error: /lib64/libpam.so.0: version `LIBPAM_MODUTIL_1.1' not found (required by /lib64/security/pam_limits.so)]
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM adding faulty module: /lib64/security/pam_limits.so
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib64/security/pam_access.so)
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM [error: /lib64/libpam.so.0: version `LIBPAM_MODUTIL_1.1' not found (required by /lib64/security/pam_access.so)]
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM adding faulty module: /lib64/security/pam_access.so
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM unable to dlopen(/lib64/security/pam_limits.so)
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM [error: /lib64/libpam.so.0: version `LIBPAM_MODUTIL_1.1' not found (required by /lib64/security/pam_limits.so)]
Feb 20 12:01:01 sirius crond[17101]: PAM adding faulty module: /lib64/security/pam_limits.so

Does anyone know how I can fix this?

Thanks in anticipation.

Regards

It's looking like you have some missing 64 bit libraries. Try this and copy the line as is including the literal brackets:
1) sudo yum list `rpm -qf /lib64/security/pam_access.so`

copy/paste the output here. The pam_access.so, pam_limits.so, and libpam.so.0 are part of the pam package.

Thanks for your response.

Here is the output. All I see is:

[root@sirius WWW]# rpm -qf /lib64/security/pam_access.so
pam-0.99.8.1-17.fc8

Regards

well I wanted you to do the whole line intact including the yum list.
So now that you have the package name do "sudo yum list pam" without the quotes. What I'm trying to get is the architecture of the package that is installed.

**EDIT**
Actually do "sudo yum info pam" without quotes

Whoops! Sorry - I misunderstood you.

sudo yum list `rpm -qf /lib64/security/pam_access.so`
Installed Packages
pam.x86_64 0.99.8.1-17.fc8 installed
pam.i386 0.99.8.1-17.fc8 installed

...and

sudo yum list `rpm -qf /lib64/security/pam_access.so`
Installed Packages
pam.x86_64 0.99.8.1-17.fc8 installed
pam.i386 0.99.8.1-17.fc8 installed
[root@sirius WWW]# sudo yum info pam
fedora 100% |=========================| 2.1 kB 00:00
adobe-linux-i386 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00
updates 100% |=========================| 2.3 kB 00:00
fedora-source 100% |=========================| 2.1 kB 00:00
Installed Packages
Name : pam
Arch : x86_64
Version: 0.99.8.1
Release: 17.fc8
Size : 2.6 M
Repo : installed
Summary: A security tool which provides authentication for applications
Description:
PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) is a system security tool that
allows system administrators to set authentication policy without
having to recompile programs that handle authentication.


Name : pam
Arch : i386
Version: 0.99.8.1
Release: 17.fc8
Size : 2.6 M
Repo : installed
Summary: A security tool which provides authentication for applications
Description:
PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) is a system security tool that
allows system administrators to set authentication policy without
having to recompile programs that handle authentication.

Hmmm you have both 32-bit and 64-bit libraries installed. Well it's not like crond is looking at the /lib/ folder, its looking in /lib64/ so it shouldn't be an issue. Do the following and post output here.

1) cat /etc/pam.d/crond
2) ldd /lib64/security/pam_access.so


**EDIT**
This also might be due to root having an incorrect path. Please also provide the following:
1) su - root
2) set | grep PATH

It was suggested that I should restart crond with

service crond restart

which I have done. This has fixed the problem.

I assume there has been an update recently and libpam.so has been
replaced. However crond was not restarted at that time.

Thank you all help.

Regards