su cannot su from root to any user: invalid password

BassJunkie · 10-08-2005, 05:42 AM

Fedora Core 3

Having just rebooted the server, has about 20 users, no one can log in with their password, invalid password. I can log in as root. But cannot su from there to any other user: invalid password. Is something not running, is a file corrupt? /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow look ok. I know to su from root to a normal user it's not necessary to enter a password so I'm assuming it's a corrupt file somewhere. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

BassJunkie · 10-08-2005, 05:49 AM

ldap_simple_bind Can't contact LDAP server

that's why, thanks anyway!

pupus · 02-05-2006, 04:26 AM

i have the same experience with bassjunkie

when i start my computer, only root can login
no users can login, eventhough their password is correct.

and once i login use using root account
i still can su -username

it is said incorrect password, directly after i enter the command su- username

please give me any help...

KMGphil · 02-27-2009, 12:33 PM

FEDORA Core 10

Same problem.. Can log in as root but cannot su to root from any other user.

I believe I accidentally did something to my file system with the CHOWN command that messed up the permissions for the Core Utilities. After spending a few hours trying this and that I found out how to fix the problem. Here's the simple fix....

from command line when logged in as root...

yum reinstall coreutils

su to another user
su root from another user

should work fine now.