Serious situation, please help

wardialer · 04-20-2005, 07:43 PM

When I login to my account, the screen goes blank and resets the login screen. I typed in the correct password and everything, and the screen goes blank for a second and resets itself to login prompt.

I do not know whats causing this. It seems to be serious. I set my password to expire in 60 days, but it should of tell me or let me know first... I assume. I am running Mandrake Linux. This very very weird and I was logged in 1 hour ago too as a matter of fact. Its been happening just now.

camlinux · 04-20-2005, 07:54 PM

Are you logging in from the GUI, have you tried switching to one of the tty's and seeing if you can log in through those.

wardialer · 04-20-2005, 08:04 PM

Ok, I always use KDE to login and It ONLY lets me pick my Username instead of ROOT in the login Window.

How can fix this issue please? You need to explain everything step-by-step as possible here. Please.

jschiwal · 04-20-2005, 08:44 PM

I'm using SuSE now, and it's been a while since I used Mandrake. I do seem to remember that there is a security policy you can set in MCC that will allow the root user to show up in the session manager.

There may also be a setting to have the root user icon show up also in the session manager setup.

However, If you can't log-in as a normal user, there is something else wrong. Could you change your default run level from 5 to 3 and log in at the console? If so, does the command "startx" start up kde or gnome?

That said, I would recommend that you do not log-in as root. If you need to run a graphical program as root, you can use 'kdesu' to start the program. For example, entering 'kdesu kwrite /etc/fstab' to make changes to the /etc/fstab file, using a simple editor. Many of the Mandrake configuration programs will prompt for the root password without needing to use kdesu. Or you could be running a root konsole and start the programs from there. ( Mandrake allows the root user access to the X-windows display after su'ing to root, for SuSE, you need to use the 'sux' command to allow this )

wardialer · 04-20-2005, 09:06 PM

But what causing this issue, so I can fix it?

Heres my output of df:

Code:

knoppix@ttyp1[knoppix]$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root                 3471       949      2522  28% /
/dev/scd0               715764    715764         0 100% /cdrom
/dev/cloop             1947338   1947338         0 100% /KNOPPIX
/ramdisk                405244      2452    402792   1% /ramdisk
/dev/hda1             38130244   2840584  35289660   8% /mnt/hda1
/dev/hda3              3582492     86108   3496384   3% /mnt/hda3
/dev/hda5              4032092    615968   3416124  16% /mnt/hda5
/dev/hda8              6040288   1808596   3924856  32% /mnt/hda8
/dev/hda7               656144     16412    606400   3% /mnt/hda7

wardialer · 04-20-2005, 09:07 PM

If the founder of Linux was standing right in front of me right now I would just shoot him..

floppywhopper · 04-21-2005, 05:21 AM

If you want to add "root" to your login menu
follow these steps

click on the "star"
go >> system
go >> configuration
go >> KDE
go >> system
go >> Login Manager
enter root password
click on Users Tab
uncheck root as a hidden user
you can also change the little picture
for your login
click-on apply & OK

Not a good idea to run as root without really knowing what you are doing
you can really stuff things up in there
Just do the job you need to do and logout
best to do things from your normal login
and just enter root password when you need to.

hope this helps
don't give up

floppy

dexter11 · 04-21-2005, 06:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by wardialer
Ok, I always use KDE to login and It ONLY lets me pick my Username instead of ROOT in the login Window.

How can fix this issue please? You need to explain everything step-by-step as possible here. Please.

You have to change the login manager In the Mandrake Control Center from mdkkdm to kdm or gdm (on the System tab in 2005LE probably the same place in 10.1). Both will let you login as root (Note that not let you login as root is for your security as others said it before me).

camlinux · 04-21-2005, 02:26 PM

Can you log into a virtual console, hold ctrl+alt+f1 it should switch you to a console with a log in prompt. Try logging in there, if you can then it's something wrong with your gui login manager. IF you can't then something else is wrong. It would help to narrow down your problem.

wardialer · 04-21-2005, 10:01 PM

Never mind because I just upgraded to 10.1...

But to avoid this issue again, what caused this problem what I had just explained?

tkedwards · 04-22-2005, 01:43 AM

Its a bit hard narrow down to what might have caused the problem if you didn't do what camlinux suggested in his last post and simply upgraded the whole system instead

It was probably something wrong with your KDE (or GNOME) - it looked like when you tried to login graphically KDE (or GNOME which ever you were using) didn't want to load.

The fact that you couldn't login as root from the GUI is an intentional feature on the part of Mandrake and enabling it is a seperate issue to the problems you where having.

If you've upgraded to 10.1 and its working I'd say you're in the clear and don't need to worry about this anymore. Post back if you have the same problem again and we'll try and troubleshoot it with you.