Hello everyone!
I am a new member and excited to join LinuxQuestions.org!

I am supporting an HP Proliant model DL380G5. The OS is Red Hat RELH 4.5 kernel 2.6.9-55.ELsmp x86_64.
I am trying to set up a text console. I have modified the following statement in /etc/inittab :

x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon to read

x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon --no-console.

This will NOT start gdm in the console, thereby giving you a text console. There are other alternatives such as go to runlevel 3 or directly access the console port, etc.
I found this solution the most elegant, since it gives your users access to graphics, while you as an administrator can use the text console.

When trying to login into the text console, the login does not succeed. It simply returns to the prompt again and again.

Also, I typed in the root password instead of the user name just to see if characters are getting in corectly and could not find anything wrong.

Here is the message I am getting in /var/log/messages :

Jan 26 06:08:05 tlpa-prod-01 login(pam_unix)[5466]: session opened for user root by LOGIN(uid=0)
Jan 26 06:08:05 tlpa-prod-01 login[5466]: Module is unknown.
If I keep trying again and again, I am getting the same message but it looks like in different places of login binary - such as 5466 then 6787 then 8799, etc.

The same works just fine on a similar machine (HP Proliant), same image, kernel, etc but 32 bit.
I'm using PAM authentication and suspect a problem with 64bit PAM libraries.

Any help would be highly appreciated - thanks.

Welcome to LQ. You want to add the word "debug" (or "audit" if it takes that) to the modules in your PAM stack. That'll throw more messages to Syslog.


No, the number changing is the PID.

Thank you kindly for your input. I have to apologize - I forgot to state that indeed I have added the word "debug" after the PAM modules, but unfortunately did not get more info in the logs.
You are absolutely right about the changing number - it has to be PID - does not make sense to be a location in the login binary (how silly of me!).

OK, since the "other" machine seems to "work as advertised", what's the difference in the /etc/pam.d/* PAM stacks between those? If none posting the relevant PAM stacks of the 64bit machine may help of help.

Sorry, I have not been logged in for a while - been very busy.
Yes, the PAM configuration files are the same for the 2 machines. The only difference is that the one which does not work is 64 bit, the one which is working is 32 bit.
Must be a clue in there somewhere.

So, in the pam.d directory, here is the authconfig file :

#%PAM-1.0
auth sufficient /lib/security/$ISA/pam_rootok.so
auth required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_stack.so service=system-auth
account required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_permit.so
session required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_permit.so


System-auth file :

#THIS FILE HAS BEEN EDITED FOR THE RHEL4U3 BLOCKPOINT:
#%PAM-1.0
# This file is auto-generated.
# User changes will be destroyed the next time authconfig is run.
auth required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_env.so
auth required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_tally.so onerr=fail no_magic_root
auth sufficient /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so likeauth nullok
auth required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_deny.so

account required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so
account required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_tally.so no_magic_root reset
account sufficient /lib/security/$ISA/pam_succeed_if.so uid < 100 quiet
account required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_permit.so

password required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_cracklib.so retry=1 minlen=8 lcredit=-1 dcredit=-1 ucredit=-1
password sufficient /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so nullok use_authtok md5 shadow remember=8
password required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_deny.so

session required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_limits.so
session required /lib/security/$ISA/pam_unix.so

Passwd file :

#%PAM-1.0
auth required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
account required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
password required pam_stack.so service=system-auth

Login file :

#%PAM-1.0
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
# pam_selinux.so close should be the first session rule
session required pam_selinux.so close
session required pam_stack.so service=system-auth
session required pam_loginuid.so
session optional pam_console.so
# pam_selinux.so open should be the last session rule
session required pam_selinux.so open
session required /lib/security/pam_limits.so

I hope this is sufficient for you to draw a conclusion.
Myself I could not see a problem. Thanks for looking into this for me. And please let me know if you need more info.

Did you ever solve this problem? I am experiencing the same thing.

Dear hitkrdnk,

It's really nice to find out that I'm not alone out there and somebody has the same problem.
I really did not receive many answers on the Newbie forum and I start to think that is better to move to the software forum, where I may get more replies. What do you think ? I'm not sure how to move to another forum - but maybe you can help with an advise on that.

Also, it seems that my customer finally bought a Software Support package, so now I can call Red Hat and give them this problem to think about. If I find anything positive, I'll let you know.

Regards

Hello sxi7365 & hitkrdnk,

I have the same issue. By any chance did you get it resolved?
If so, could you please help me by letting me know what you did.

Thanks,

Hello and welcome to LQ, hope you like it here. Since you're new here you don't know that we would rather see you create your own thread instead of resurrecting old threads. Next to that, since the thread has made no progress, the first thing I'd check is the RH bug tracker and knowledge base. Also note the OP states his PAM configs are the same, and maybe that is OK for older EL versions, but if I check the contents of pam-0.99.6.2-3.27.el5.x86_64 I see /lib/security is not populated but /lib64/security is.

Why? This thread isn't that old and reviving it might bring back the original OP and others having the same exact issue with a solution. Let's clutter up the forum with repeated questions when they can happily coincide with existing thread discussing the same technical problem.

I have the same problems (64bit vs 32bit). Did you get it resolved?
If so, could you please help me by letting me know what you did

I had something similar to what you posted:

session required /lib/security/pam_limits.so

On my system it was having a problem with the full path to pam_limits.so, the correct entry should be:

session required pam_limits.so