Hi Everybody,

When iam logging into redhat linux, its giving 'Authentication Failed' message.
I tried to get in to the interactive mode while booting and after giving my root password, i got prompt as below

(RepairFileSystem)#

I tried 'fsck' and its getting out with out doing file system check.
And i also tried to create a new user by all ways , like

(RepairFileSystem)# adduser naren
(RepairFileSystem)# useradd naren
(RepairFileSystem)# useradd -d <username> -p <password> -L | -U

and iam getting message as

'unable to lock password'

even after trying -L and -U options

So please help me by giving some solution or hint (advantageous) in solving my problem

Thank you very much in advance.

Hi Mr.,
I am supposing your file system is an ext2/ext3. If the system detected some problem, it left this partition read only.I think this is the reason it is telling "can't lock password". The best is you boot from floppy or cd to repair it. When you get the prompt, you should use e2fsck with "-f" option to force the check procedure. After the check, mount the filesystem in any directory and look the /<any directory>/etc to see if you have the passwd file and, if you use shadow, you also have shadow file.