Hi,
i am having a login problem.
everytime i put "root" as username and the "password" , it starts loging in but log me out sudenly and went back to the log screen...i have tried to log as a differnet user...nothing still.... the only way to get in my files is by command line.
please help me find a way to login as normal with "root"
thank you in advance

This usually indicates that your entering the wrong password.

Since this article, and many others just like it, are publicly available I'm not going to discuss legal/ethical issues and just presume "you" are the system administrator who has forgotten the password.

How to Reset forgotten Root passwords
http://linuxgazette.net/107/tomar.html

If this is a new installation and you think you messed something up, don't be afraid to reinstall. There's nothing like trial and error to learn something.

This sounds more like the window-manager is crashing (or is not found) than like he forgot the password. If he can log in from the command line and it accept the password... he's not trying to break in and doesn't need to reset the password.

dody, from the command line, can you get and then post the contents of ${HOME}/.xsession-errors ? This file will contain the output from what is being run when you log in and will contain error messages which will help us solve the problem.

Hi bsdunix
i am the administrator
i know the password
i am even able to log on command line and change the root passwd but still doen't change anything

Hi frob23,
i did get in as command line and authenticate with root . and as u said there is a SYSerr(root) message coming in ...it's about my sendmail...i went on /etc/aliases and run newaliases but still didn't fix the problem.
i made a kill -HUP (#) command to restart sendmail
i am still not able to log as root correctly
what would u guys suggeste to me?
thns again for helping

Hi guys,
previously it gave me this message:
"servername" sendmail [476] : 14UEvQI2000456: SYSERR(root): dbm map "alias0": missing map file /etc/mail/aliases

now am trying to log on command line ...it keeps writing in capital letters ROOT but i do not have CAPSlock on.
now when i put the passwd seems like it's in cap letter also coz it not accepting it

oh
ok guys...
forget what i said about ROOT in cap letter...after i reeboot the server, i am able to login in command line fine now, but am still not able to log normally to the desktop as root
hope u can help me with that

when i log on command line as root
i get this SYSERR message
"hostname" sendmail [476]: 14UEvQI2000456: SYSERR(root): dbm map "alias0": missing map file /etc/mail/aliases

I do not care about the errors you are getting when you log in at the command line. Reread what I posted. I am concerned about the errors that happen when you log into the graphical screen. Those errors should be in ${HOME}/.xsession-errors and I would like you to take a look at that file and produce the relevant error messages.

The above command should spit out the last 10 lines of the file (this probably is enough but it may not be). When you have those errors... please post them here. Until then, I can not help you. No matter how many times you give me sendmail error messages (that is another very minor issue to solve later).

terminals give you a better idea at whats happening unlike the GUI. I would be more concerned about the command line than the GUI.

In this case, they are irrelevant and distracting from the purpose unless they are severe enough to cause his login to be unsuccessful. His problem is not "logging in" per say, but rather it is "logging into X." When you log into X directly, error output is redirected to a file (.xsession-errors) in your home directory. If your xsession exits before you do anything... it is likely because of some error and that file will contain it 90% of the time. I've had a few rare instances where it wasn't the case (and then the message was in /var/log/X*.log instead.

Since he is not logging into X when he logs into the terminal... he won't see the error and we must rely on logfiles to ferret out and fix this problem. If he couldn't log in at all... then I would be concerned about messages on the terminal and console. If his problem was related to sendmail not functioning correctly... I would be concerned about sendmail messages on the console (which is distinct from terminals in general). But that is not the problem here.

ok
am sorry for not understanding the previous mail
i did as u told me

tail ~/.xsession-errors

and i got the followings as an answer:
"ICEauthority@.gnome-desktop.vconsole.properties appsority-ccacheT .xftcach
.Xauthority-n .ICEauthority- I@"

What happens if you run "startx" from the terminal?

Edit: I expect this to fail... and hopefully produce more informative messages. I am not familiar with gnome (apparently what you're using) and that message doesn't help me much. I need a more verbose listing.

it says
command not found

make sure that is for your distro - the distro you are running might call it something different