When i try telnetting to my comp on my network at home, it lets me login as any user on my comp or as a "guest", but it will not let me login as root.. Most of the other problems I have seen with other people is that it only works with root and not the other users. Any suggestions?

Telnet? Use ssh instead.
To use root you would just 'su' to root and provide the password.
This is a security feature.
It allows you to login as a guest? Yikes. Do you want it to?

Sounds like your telnet is set up not to allow root logins. This is a security feature that is set. It is best to login using the username, then su to root. If you feel you must login in as root, I am sure there is a place in the config. file you can change this. Also, when you use telnet your username and password and set unencrypted and any door knob with a packet sniffer could find out your password. You should look into SSH, it is much safer.

Mike

Thanks for the responses...I actually use SSH, but I was curious why I couldn't connect to my machine using my root username through telnet...was wondering where those settings were.

-Keerthan

on my Redhat 9 system, it is in the file /etc/pam.d/login

#auth required pam_securetty.so
auth required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
auth required pam_nologin.so
account required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
password required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
session required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
session optional pam_console.so

the snippet above is the contents in the file, just comment out the line that says 'auth required pam_securetty.so'

but everyone in this post is right (i think u understand why), use SSH instead ...

Thanks yangkuo ...that worked great. ....I was also wondering what the significance of the other commands in that file were and what they kind of mean if you wouldn't mind telling me. Well, thanks again.

-Keerthan

i don't mind but i think it is best you do a 'man pam' to get the definitive answer !

Sounds good

'man pam' huhhuh(In my best Beavis and Butthead voice) that sounds funny.

Man Pam, you are one crazy lady.

the other day I had to type in "less cat" (huhhuh)

My boss gets worried about "killall ..."