Long story short - I use red hat ent linux and I get updates from them - I installed the latest update, and as always it came up with problems with X server. Well, no big deal, login to console and run the script I keep, right? ya, well, when I tried to login, it would just flash right back to the login screen like nothing happened. I did see the below in my logs. I ended up booting up to the bum screen and using putty to ssh in - where I ran the script, X booted up and I could log in again???

Sep 12 00:25:20 localhost login(pam_unix)[4521]: session opened for user patsy by LOGIN(uid=0)
Sep 12 00:25:20 localhost login[4521]: Module is unknown
Sep 12 00:25:30 localhost login(pam_unix)[5650]: session opened for user root by LOGIN(uid=0)
Sep 12 00:25:30 localhost login[5650]: Module is unknown

any gurus got any ideas> mucho gracias amigos!

Hello \& welcome to LQ, hope you like it here.


I use red hat ent linux and I get updates from them - I installed the latest update
Exactly what packages where updated?


Well, no big deal, login to console and run the script I keep
Should we know what it does? I mean, is the function of this script of relevance to solving the problem?


Sep 12 00:25:20 localhost login(pam_unix)[4521]: session opened for user patsy by LOGIN(uid=0)
Sep 12 00:25:20 localhost login[4521]: Module is unknown
Maybe a botched %post-install script in an RPM that didn't (re-)initialise stuff (properly)?
Are these all the related errors from the logs?

Sorry - I upgraded my kernel to the latest greatest available for 86x64

The script I reference is the source for the NVIDIA drivers... I just execute the run file against the latest greatest kernel


I didn't even know that there were post install scripts. I tried to rpm pam -e and pam had some dependencies... Should I "force" reinstall that? Can I even do that?

thanks!

I upgraded my kernel
Hmm. That doesn't make sense, I mean a kernel upgrade has no relation I know to PAM in a way it would influence, hamper or outright mistreat the PAM stack.


I tried to rpm pam -e and pam had some dependencies... Should I "force" reinstall that?
WHY ON EARTH would you want to de-install PAM? It will only cost you time as it will horribly break about any sysauth thing you got goin on there. Don't fix what ain't broken. I mean, it's working now, right?


Can I even do that?
Technically speaking you can ;-p


Are you using custom PAM modules?
Are there any other syslog error messages around update time?
Did you ever have this kind of problem with RHN updates before?

yeah, I realize that I am not doing a very good job of reporting the essentials here, mostly because I am straight up noob. Anyway, I did not see any errors. It is is working now in that I can log in, but odds are that it would puke on me in console mode...

I use the rpm packages to upgrade through Up2Date. This kernel did not go in smoothly. First, I had dependency conflicts with smartd - I had to uninstall that, install the kernel, and then reinstall the smartd.

I was hoping to figure this out so that it would help out the next person, but I think we aren't going to get too far here. If something else goes awry I will post it here....

cheers!