help please - user problem
 

this is really odd

i am running mandrake 8.2

one day, i could log in with any username, everything went fine, but now, i enter the correct username and password, xserver even knows that it is right, but it just restarts xserver whenever i try to log in as anything but root

does anyone have a solution or do you need more information?

can u 'su' to some normal user after you have logged in
as a root....

i logged in as root ( it seems to be the only one that half way works )

when i do that 'su' command, it just hangs at the Password: thing when i try to go to certain users. others, it will switch without a problem

As root, cd to /etc and look at the passwd file. Are any of the users you created there?

j.

yeah, they are all there

You said "xserver", so are you using an X login manager like kdm xdm or gdm then?

im not really sure what it is called, there was a menu button, i clicked it and it said "Restart X Server"

Is there a file in /etc called nologin?

no there isnt, is that a bad thing?

No. It's good. If /etc/nologin exists, then only the user "root" can log in.

j.

alright *phew*

now can anyone tell me why i cant log in as certain users?

this is like, the most odd (yeah, incorrect) thing i have ever seen

i had this once on mandrake. i reinstalled, but you do not need to do that, obviously, just not quite sure what the problem is.

can anybody yay or nay this:- could it be screwed up files with the desktop environment? eg. if you have GNOME as your desktop manager, try using KDE to see if that enables you to login, or if you have KDE, try logging in with windowmaker et c.

If it works, then the problem has been isolated down to your desktop environment.

check if identd server is running or not...i had a
similar problem a short while ago on redhat...also
check .xsession-errors ...

Kill your login manager would be the first step:

Type: CTRL + ALT + F2 (and log in as root)
Follow that up with:
init 3
And now you have killed your X server. Now log out of root:
exit
And try logging in with each user/pass
If each user can login that way, you have isolated the problem to X at least. Possibly a missing xinit or something along those lines. But first make sure the users are all ok to login.

After that, with each user, try typing:
startx
and see if you can get into whatever wm is the users' default on your system. If that works with each user, well then it sounds like you would have it now narrowed down to a problem with your xdm/kdm or gdm (whichever you use).

Let us know if you get that far, or if there are problems before that, what they are.

Cool

thanks for all of your help guys

but...it didnt really need to be done, my brother (the smaller, lesser being that he is) formatted my linux partition "by accident".

all is good, i have everything back up and running, just need to get WINE back and MPlayer

all access is granted on my computer once again

thanks for all of your help anyway