I have a Centos 5.3 server being used for subversion. It is bound to an Active Directory using winbind (samba-winbind 3).

There is sometimes a lag when logging in via ssh before the password prompt is shown. Two days ago while waiting to be asked for the root password I hit ctrl+c, the lag continued for another couple seconds, then I was given the root prompt -- I did not enter a password though it still echoed the "root@hosts's password:" line.

I thought I was mistaken and tried to do it again, but the lag only happens when it's been a while since the last login.

Yesterday I tried again and the exact same thing happened.

I am going to try it again today to see if it is happening as I believe it is. My question is what logs or configuration settings I should look at to see what is going on. /var/log/secure showed nothing unusual from the occurrence yesterday; it said the root password was accepted.

I did a couple searches and found no bugs similar to this.

Any input is appreciated.

Well in that case...


Then you're 7 updates behind (CentOS has been at 5.10 for some time now). Not good!


If you're logging in locally that's fine. Remember root should not log in over any networks: use an unprivileged account and then elevate privileges the usual way.


Why make the effort if you didn't reconfigure things first?


CentOS being related to RHEL that would mean your PAM stacks in /etc/pam.d/, the changes you made to make winbind work and especially the effect of having any "auth sufficient" lines.